From Congress-mukt Bharat to Congress-yukt BJP, the transformation is in full swing

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have never imagined that the slogan 'Congress-mukt Bharat (India free of Congress)' coined by him in 2014 will actually turn into 'Congress-yukt Bharatiya Janata Party (Congress-laden BJP)' by 2022.

The Congressisation of the BJP has been a continuous process since PM Modi succeeded Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister in 2014.

On Saturday, five Congress leaders from Punjab joined the BJP.

The attrition rate is so high that there are as of now four BJP chief Ministers who had quit the Congress to join the saffron party.

These are Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Prema Khandu (Arunachal Pradesh), Biren Singh (Manipur) and Manik Saha (Tripura).

Apart from them, there are four other chief ministers who come from the Congress stable but are leading different political parties now.

These are West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who heads the Trinamool Congress, Andhra Pradesh chief minister YSR Jaganmohan Reddy who is the president of the YSR Congress Party, Telangana chief minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) supremo K Chandrashekar Rao and lastly Puducherry chief minister and All India NR Congress president N Rangaswamy.

Many former Congress leaders and even those who have been ministers in the UPA government now hold important positions in the central and state governments. For example, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jitin Prasada. Scindia is the Union civil aviation minister while Prasada is a cabinet minister in Uttar Pradesh. 

Hailed as Young Turks in the Congress, they can be easily called the torchbearers of what the BJP has often denounced as dynasty politics.

So, the question that begs to be asked is - does the BJP have a problem with the Congress and the Gandhi family and not with its leaders who are desperate to protect their own interests by switching sides.

The allegations of corruption or wrongdoings against a Congress leader are valid only till a person joins the BJP, and thereafter he or she is washed of all sins.

It has also been seen that a few categories of Congress leaders have left the grand old party so far - either those who fear that the government might go after them for some wrongdoing or those who seek power.

That explains Saturday's move of four former Punjab ministers to join the BJP.
Apart from the former Congress ministers Raj Kumar Verka, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Sunder Sham Arora and Gurpreet Singh Kangar, a former Congress legislator from Barnala, Kewal Dhillon, also joined the BJP. 

All of them and even their families had enjoyed power in the Congress, especially under Captain Amarinder Singh. They ditched him without batting an eyelid though they too were immediately removed after Charanjit Singh Channi took over as the Punjab chief minister in September last year.

After being axed as the chief minister, Captain Amarinder himself didn't stay in the Congress for too long and soon formed his own political outfit, Punjab Lok Congress, which fought this year's assembly elections in alliance with the BJP.

Now, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party's pledge to go after some former ministers over the allegations of irregularities had prompted some of them to opt for a safe shelter in the form of the BJP.

But this development has also upset many committed BJP leaders and workers who feel the move to welcome the Congress leaders with open arms will eventually hurt the saffron party in terms of ideological commitment.

If the trend continues and which seems likely till the BJP is in power at the Centre, the day is not far away when it will be dominated by the defectors and turncoats from the Congress.