Gourav Vallabh: Cong’s TV voice discovers BJP language, of Ram Temple, Sanatan Dharma and Cong ‘sins’

A familiar face for the Congress on television, Gourav Vallabh on Thursday joined the list of leaders leaving the party for the BJP. While the fact that he is not a grass-root leader or an organisational heavyweight means his exit will hurt the Congress more in terms of optics, it’s the issues that he flagged which will cause the party discomfort.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Vallabh, 47, called the Congress leadership’s decision not to attend the Ayodhya Ram Temple consecration a “sin” – “forget about any political gains or losses”. “Since that day, have you seen me doing any press conferences or appearing on any television shows? I have not entered the AICC since,” he said.

Vallabh claimed he was also disturbed by the remarks of some Congress leaders regarding Sanatan Dharma. “I went to every single Congress leader and told them we will be wiped out once again in North India because of the statements by our allies (the DMK) and some of our leaders abusing Sanatan… but nobody listened.”

Incidentally, as recently as the November Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Vallabh, who joined the Congress in 2017, was fielded by the party from the Udaipur seat. (While Vallabh is a native of Udaipur, he has not lived there since 2002.)

On Thursday, Vallabh attributed his loss (by more than 32,000 votes) to “the abuses against Sanatan by our alliance partners”. “The Congress is not aware of what is happening on the ground. You did not go to the Ram Mandir ceremony… you are a sinner.”

The Udaipur loss was Vallabh’s second electoral defeat, with the Congress fielding him in 2019 from the Jamshedpur East Assembly seat against the sitting BJP chief minister, Raghubar Das. That was just two years after Vallabh had joined the Congress.