Jagmeet Brar
Former Congress MP Jagmeet Singh Brar Friday joined the Shiromani Akali Dal in the presence of party's senior leadership at Muktsar in Punjab.
Akali stalwart and five-time chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son and party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and senior Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia welcomed Brar and his supporters into the party fold.
Addressing the gathering, Parkash Singh Badal said: "It is a historic day for the party today as Punjab's well known personality, speaker and the most experienced politician Jagmeet Brar joins Akali Dal."
On Thursday, Brar had announced on Twitter that he was joining the SAD.
A permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) for 10 years, Brar was expelled from the Congress in 2016. He had later joined the Trinamool Congress and was the president of the party's state unit until last year when he quit.
Brar had defeated Sukhbir Singh Badal from Faridkot Lok Sabha seat in 1999 but lost to him in the 2004 general elections.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh mocked Brar's "opportunistic, last-ditch resort" to rescue his political career after "failing" to wriggle his way back into the Congress.
Citing a series of WhatsApp messages received from Brar over the last few weeks, Amarinder Singh said that the former MP was apparently desperate to get back into politics.
However, he decided to go with the Badals, whom he had promised "to fix" if the Congress agreed to take him back, he said, adding that Brar had a political agenda to further and was ready to do it "by hook or by crook".
The former MP had, for the last several weeks, been trying "unabashedly" to get into the Congress but, with the party high command refusing to intervene and he (Amarinder) himself not responding to any of Brar's desperate messages, the former MP had decided to throw his weight behind the SAD, the chief minister said in a statement.
Clearly Brar had decided to throw himself at the feet of the very Badals after his (the chief minister's) persistent refusal to acknowledge and respond to the former MP's desperate messages, the statement added.
The Congress was better off without such "opportunistic and self-seeking" individuals, said Amarinder Singh, adding that he hoped Brar would be more loyal to the Badals than he had been to the Congress party, which was instrumental in shaping his political career.
Amarinder also took a dig at the Badals for embracing Brar out of "sheer frustration" in the face of their imminent defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled to be held in Punjab on May 19.
They (the Badals) must be equally desperate, he said, to take in a "carpetbagger" like Brar, he said.
