GANDHINAGAR: Harshad Ribadiya, a former Congress MLA from the Junagadh district of Gujarat's Visavadar, formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday in the presence of Pradipsinh Vaghela, the party's general secretary.
Ribadiya denied claims that he joined the BJP because he was given a 40 crore rupee promise. Ambarish Der, the working president of the Gujarat Congress, claims that Ribadiya informed him that the BJP had made him an offer of Rs. 40 crore during a conversation.
In response to Der's accusations, Ribadiya asserted that two Congress leaders had approached him during the 2017 Rajya Sabha elections, when party heavyweight Ahmed Patel was running for office, and had given him Rs 40 crore in exchange for his resignation as an MLA. He claimed that the two leaders wished for Patel to lose the election and for the number of party MLAs to decline.
Former Congress MLA: "Workers are leaving the party because there is a lack of policy, vision, and leadership." On that day, a number of Ribadiya's supporters also joined the saffron party.
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