Exit The Dragons: Jyotiraditya Scindia, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Kapil Sibal, Heavyweights Who Quit Congress Since 2013

To add insult to injury, the party has witnessed the exit of many prominent leaders, especially since 2014, when the Modi wave swept the country and is still checking any and every attempt by the GOP to revive its fortunes.

New Delhi: The Indian National Congress (INC), the Grand Old Party of Indian politics is on a downward spiral for the past few years. Several leaders have left the party over the years, however, off late, there is an exodus of sorts. The biggest loss Congress suffered was a defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections followed by the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, not to mention the Assembly elections to several states and the Union Territories. To add insult to injury, the party has witnessed the exit of many prominent leaders, especially since 2014, when the Modi wave swept the country and is still checking any and every attempt by the GOP to revive its fortunes.

On Tuesday, 18 May this year, Congress was dealt a big blow as just ahead of the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections, Patidar leader Hardik Patel quit the party. His departure has further added to the ever-growing list of prominent names who have bid goodbye to Congress. Kapil Sibal, Sunil Jakhar, Captain Amarinder Singh, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev, Jyotiraditya Scindia and the list is long. Here we look at some of the most prominent Congress leaders who left the party. This list is from 2013 onwards.

List of Top Leaders or Regional Satraps who Left Congress Party

Rao Inderjit Singh

Rao Inderjit Singh won the 1998, 2004, and 2009 Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket. He resigned from Congress and joined Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) before the 2014 elections and was elected to the 16th Lok Sabha on a BJP ticket followed by the 2019 victory as a BJP candidate.

Himanta Biswa Sarma

Himanta Biswa Sarma is the current Chief Minister of Assam. While in Congress, Sarma was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly from Jalukbari for the first time in 2001. He was re-elected in 2006, then in 2011 for a third consecutive term.

He was made Cabinet Minister for Health in 2006, and in 2011 he was also entrusted with the additional charge of Education. He resigned from Congress in 2015.

Rita Bahuguna Joshi

Rita Bahuguna Joshi, a big name in Uttar Pradesh politics, held the post of the mayor of Allahabad from 1995 to 2000 and was the president of the All India Mahila Congress since 2003 and of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee since September 2007. The daughter of Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, she joined the BJP in October 2016. She was elected to the Lok Sabha from Allahabad as BJP candidate.

N Biren Singh

Nongthombam Biren Singh is currently serving as the Chief Minister of Manipur for the second term since 2017. He joined Congress in 2003 and won the Assembly elections from Heingang. He retained the seat in 2007 contesting on a Congress ticket. He quit Congress in 2016 and joined BJP.

Pema Khandu

Pema Khandu is the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh. Since assuming the office of chief minister in July 2016, he and his government have twice changed their party affiliation, in September 2016 from Congress to the Peoples Party of Arunachal, and then in December 2016 to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Pema Khandu won the by-election to Mukto constituency uncontested as a Congress candidate. He became a secretary of the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee in 2005 and the Tawang District Congress Committee president in 2010. He was elected Congress Legislature Party leader on 16 July 2016 replacing Nabam Tuki.

He left Congress in a high-octane political drama in September 2016.

Jyotiraditya Scindia

Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, more popularly known as Jyotiraditya Scindia, is the current Minister of Civil Aviation in the BHP-led NDA government. A former member of the Congress, Jyotiraditya Scindia was Minister of State with independent charge for various ministries between 2007 and 2014 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Jyotiraditya Scindia’s first tryst with mainstream politics was in the year 2002 when he won the by-election in Guna, Madhya Pradesh on a Congress ticket. He was re-elected in May 2004 and 2009, and in 2014, when the Modi wave swept the country, on Congress ticket.

In the 2019 elections, he lost from Guna to Krishna Pal Singh of the BJP. In 2019, he was appointed as General Secretary in charge for Uttar Pradesh West along with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

On 10 March 2020, he quit Congress citing dissatisfaction with the INC leadership especially with Rahul Gandhi. He later joined the BJP on 11 March 2020 and took with him MLAs loyal to him, leading to Madhya Pradesh political crisis which resulted in the resignation of Kamal Nath as the state Chief Minister on 23 March 2020.

Priyanka Chaturvedi

Priyanka Chaturvedi, a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, was a member and one of the National Spokespersons of Congress before she joined Shiv Sena.

Priyanka Chaturvedi had joined Congress in 2010, becoming General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress from North-West Mumbai in 2012. She has a significant presence on social media and is known for defending the policies of Congress. In April 2019, she posted a tweet expressing her dissatisfaction about Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC)reinstating some party workers who were earlier suspended for their unruly behaviour toward her.

She joined Shiv Sena in April 2019 in the presence of Uddhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray.

Jitin Prasada

Jitin Prasada was appointed the general secretary of Indian Youth Congress in 2001. In 2004, he won his first election and was elected Member of the Parliament in the 14th Lok Sabha from his hometown constituency of Shahjahanpur, UP.

In 2009, he fought and won the election from Dhaurara, as his home bastion Shahjahanpur came under the delimitation process. He was appointed as In-Charge for West Bengal for Congress, ahead of 2021 but he resigned from Congress and joined the BJP in June 2021.

Amarinder Singh

Amarinder Singh served as the Chief Minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007 and 2017 to 2022. He was also the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. He resigned as the Chief Minister of Punjab in September 2021 as a consequence of conversations with the Congress high command that suggested the Punjab Congress MLAs were lacking confidence in his leadership.

Singh left Congress Party in October 2021 and announced that he would be floating a new party soon and that he would be allying with the Bharatiya Janata Party for the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections.

Singh founded Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) in November 2021 after he quit Congress.

Sunil Jakhar

Sunil Jakhar is the former president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. Sunil Jakhar was elected consecutively three times from Abohar constituency. He was a member of Congress till 2022 and later joined the BJP.

Kapil Sibal

Kapil Sibal, a very senior leader, and a big name in the political circles, resigned from the party on May 16. He made the announcement after filing his nomination as the Samajwadi Party’s candidate for Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

“I had resigned from the Congress party on May 16. It is important to be an independent voice in parliament. If an independent voice speaks up then people will believe it is not from any political party,” Sibal, whose tenure as Congress Rajya Sabha member ends in July, said.

Ashwani Kumar

Ashwani Kumar has served as the Indian National Congress’s National Spokesperson and Chairman of its Vichar Vibhag. Ashwani Kumar was the Minister of Law and Justice from 28 October 2012 to 11 May 2013, and Minister of State in the Ministry of Planning; Ministry of Science and Technology; and Ministry of Earth Sciences from 19 January 2011 to 11 May 2013, and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs from January to July 2011.

In 2013, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed him as his Special Envoy “to maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges with Japan”.

He resigned from the Indian National Congress on February 15, 2022.

Ashwani Kumar was upset with the party leadership and parted ways saying, “I was feeling uncomfortable, helpless and ignored for the last many months and I understood that now I am not needed in the party. Therefore, I distanced myself. I was not able to do whatever I wanted to do by staying inside the party. That’s why I decided to fulfil my duty and now I can do what I feel comfortable to do.” He had predicted a loss for the Congress in Punjab in the 2022 Assembly elections.

Hardik Patel

Hardik Patel came to prominence in July 2015 when he led the Patidar reservation agitation movement that sought Other Backward Class (OBC) status for the Patidar caste.

Since 2020, Patel served as the Working President of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, the Indian National Congress’ state unit in Gujarat.

Hardik Patel backed the campaign of Congress in the 2017 Gujarat legislative assembly election and joined Congress on 12 March 2019. He was appointed the Working President of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee on 11 July 2020.

In 2022, he accused the Congress leadership of sidelining him while making important decisions and eventually quit the party in May 2022.

RPN Singh

Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh, known as RPN Singh was the Congress Member of Parliament for Kushinagar constituency in the fifteenth Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014. In September 2020, Singh was chosen for AICC in-charge of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

He resigned from Congress in January 2022 and joined the BJP, a month ahead of the 2022 UP Elections.