Repent quitting Congress, says Verka in Amritsar

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Amritsar, October 13

Former Congress MLA from Amritsar West Raj Kumar Verka, who joined the BJP after losing the 2022 Assembly elections, today announced the ‘ghar wapsi’.

Before leaving for New Delhi to rejoin the Congress officially, Verka in Amritsar said he had committed a mistake by quitting the party. However, he did not confirm if he had met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his apolitical visit to Amritsar to perform ‘sewa’ at the Golden Temple.

“I repent leaving the Congress. I am going to New Delhi to rectify this mistake by making ‘ghar wapsi’. I was in touch with the party high command. I am going to rejoin the party in the presence of senior leaders at New Delhi,” he said, hinting that more of his ‘humsafars’ who had quit the Congress too, would come back along with him.

Verka joined the BJP on June 4, 2022, along with Balbir Singh Sidhu, Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Sundar Sham Arora, and others at the party office in Chandigarh.

About quitting the saffron party, he said: “Kuchh to Mazboorian rahin hongi, yu to koi vafadar bewafa nahin hota. I had observed that the BJP seldom has any plan for Punjab and Amritsar. Moreover, they (BJP) could not accommodate all sections of society. So, I decided to submit my resignation. Only the Congress can unite the country”, he said.

Verka, a prominent Dalit leader from the Majha region, had a long stint of over two decades with the Congress. He served as the vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for two terms. He made his debut from the Verka Assembly constituency in 2002. After being defeated in 2007, he bounced back in 2012 and 2017 from the Amritsar West seat. He also became Cabinet Minister in the Punjab Government as Minister of Social Justice, Medical Education and Research during the previous Congress regime.