Upset with Congress for skipping Ayodhya event, Jabalpur Mayor, Digvijaya aide cross over to BJP

In a setback to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh just a couple of months before the Lok Sabha elections, Jabalpur Mayor Jagat Singh Annu quit the party to join the ruling BJP Wednesday, saying he was upset with the Congress since it declined the invitation for the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya last month.

Annu took membership of the BJP at the party headquarters in Bhopal in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, state BJP chief V D Sharma, former state home minister Narottam Mishra, among other senior leaders, which highlighted the importance of the event as Annu was the first Congress Mayor in Jabalpur in 18 years. He was also considered close to former CM Kamal Nath and another senior Congress leader Vivek Tankha.

Jabalpur is the nerve centre of the Mahakaushal region where the Congress has been reduced to nine Assembly seats, most of which are in Chhindwara, Kamal Nath’s home turf.

Annu said he was “hurt since the day Congress rejected the invitation to go to the Pran Pratishtha (consecration) of Lord Ram Mandir”.

He said, “I will develop Jabalpur as a metropolis with the development policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the double engine government.”

Meanwhile, in Guna, Congress leader Sumer Singh, a known loyalist of former CM Digvijaya Singh, also switched to the BJP, citing the same reason as Annu.

Sumer told The Indian Express, “I have always been with the Congress. I left the party as I was angry over the way it dealt with the Ram Mandir event. He is our God and we express our love to him. I can’t be with a party which disrespects Ram. We can’t accept it.”

Sumer, who was elected as the Guna district panchayat president as the Congress nominee during 2010-15, joined the BJP Wednesday in the