Gurugram: Former MP Ashok Tanwar rejoined the Congress hours before campaigning for the Haryana assembly elections was to come to a close Thursday, dealing a blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Dalit leader’s return to the Congress comes at a time when the BJP is seeking to project the party as anti-Dalit for allegedly undermining Kumari Selja, a prominent Dalit leader who doesn’t get along with the party’s face in Haryana, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi reinducted the 49-year-old leader—who was the BJP’s candidate from Sirsa in the Lok Sabha elections this year—into the party in Bawania village, Mahendragarh. The Congress posted a video from its X handle showing Tanwar walking up to Gandhi with Hooda at his side.
In the post accompanying the video, the party said: “The Congress has always raised its voice for the rights of the oppressed and marginalised and has fought with full dedication to protect the Constitution. Inspired by this struggle and commitment, today senior BJP leader, former MP, member of BJP’s campaign committee in Haryana, and star campaigner Shri Ashok Tanwar (@Tanwar_Indian) has joined the Congress. Your joining will further strengthen the fight for the rights of the Dalit community. We warmly welcome you back to the Congress family and extend our best wishes for the future.”
कांग्रेस ने लगातार शोषितों, वंचितों के हक़ की आवाज़ उठाई है और संविधान की रक्षा के लिए पूरी ईमानदारी से लड़ाई लड़ी है।
हमारे इस संघर्ष और समर्पण से प्रभावित होकर आज BJP के वरिष्ठ नेता, पूर्व सांसद, हरियाणा में BJP की कैंपेन कमेटी के सदस्य और स्टार प्रचारक श्री अशोक तंवर… pic.twitter.com/DynuJEleSE
— Congress (@INCIndia) October 3, 2024
The video showed Gandhi greeting Tanwar warmly with a smile on his face on the stage. Later, Gandhi and Hooda admitted Tanwar to the Congress by draping the party’s scarf on his shoulders. Tanwar was the president of the Indian Youth Congress when Gandhi became the Congress general secretary in-charge of the youth wing in 2007.
Tanwar had left the Congress in 2019.
Succession of party changes
On 5 October, 2019, before the Haryana assembly elections, Tanwar had resigned from the primary membership in protest over the ticket distribution.
After leaving the Congress, Tanwar formed his own party, but when this didn’t make a significant impact, he went on to join West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). However, after spending a year with the TMC, he grew disillusioned with that party as well, and defected to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on 4 April, 2022.
Then, about eight months ago, he resigned from AAP—citing its alliance with the Congress under the INDIA bloc—and joined the BJP in the presence of its national president, J.P. Nadda, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. He was the BJP’s candidate from Sirsa in the Lok Sabha elections this year but lost to the Congress candidate, Kumari Selja.
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About Ashok Tanwar
Born into a Dalit family in Chimni village, Jhajjar, Tanwar had his first exposure to politics as a member of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) during his time at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. At JNU, he pursued his master’s and PhD at the Centre for Historical Studies.
Tanwar’s political journey began when he became NSUI secretary in 1999 and later its president in 2003. In 2005, he married Avantika Maken, the granddaughter of former President Shankar Dayal Sharma. Avantika Maken was also an NSUI secretary alongside him.
In 2009, Tanwar was elected Lok Sabha MP from the Sirsa parliamentary constituency. He worked closely with Rahul Gandhi during his tenure in the Youth Congress, and it was Gandhi who appointed him as the Haryana Pradesh Congress president in February 2014.
However, he lost the seat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and was unable to win it back in 2019.
As the Congress state president, Tanwar was seen as having differences with former chief minister Hooda, and eventually had to relinquish his position. In the lead-up to the 2019 assembly elections, he was replaced as state Congress president by Kumari Selja, a month before he resigned from the party.
Tanwar then supported Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in the 2019 Haryana assembly polls before founding his own party, the Apna Bharat Morcha.
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