BHOPAL: Close confidant of Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from the Javad area in Neemuch, Samandar Patel arrived at the state capital to officially rejoin his former party the Indian National Congress party on Friday in an impressive convoy of 1200 vehicles, followed by an estimated 5000 supporters who also joined the party.

Displaying the magnitude of his political influence which was evident by the huge group which rallied with him, Patel who had announced to return to Congress a week ago, formally joined the INC in the presence of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Kamal Nath at the PCC office in  Bhopal. BJP released the list of candidates for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections a day earlier on Thursday.

In March 2020, Patel quit Congress along with Scindia’s group of 22 MLAs after which the Congress government led by chief minister Kamal Nath was toppled to be replaced by a BJP-led government helmed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Ironically, Friday’s move is Patel’s second return to the Congress, he had first quit the Congress party in 2018 after being denied a ticket to the assembly polls and contested as an independent that year, cutting into the Congress’s prospects by polling 35,000 votes on his own leading to the victory for BJP’s candidate Dilip Singh Parihar. However ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he rejoined the Congress again only to quit in 2020 along with the Scindia group. 

Speaking at the gala event Patel said, that he was very happy to return to the Congress Party and citing the reason for leaving BJP he said, "I felt suffocated within that party."

Patel is not the first of the Scindia loyalist to return to his former party, earlier in June, Shivpuri BJP vice-president Rakesh Gupta, another staunch Scindia ally had also switched sides, expressing that he felt a lack of respect within the BJP. In a show of strength, Gupta had also come to join the Congress with a fleet of hundreds of vehicles carrying over 2000 supporters.

Later that month another BJP leader, Baijnath Singh Yadav who had left with Scindia also rejoined the Congress along with his supporters, including 15 Janpad members. 

The return of several former Congress leaders leaving the BJP is considered a significant political shift in the state of Madhya Pradesh coming ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled to take place in the state later this year.