After the exit of RPN Singh from the Congress, former Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar too is likely to desert the party.
Babbar is expected to join the Samajwadi Party. Interestingly on Monday, The Congress named him as one of the 30 star campaigners of the party for the first phase of the UP polls.
Sources said Raj Babbar is in touch with SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav and can quit the Congress soon.
Babbar, former cine star and native of Agra, began his political journey from Janata Dal in 1989. The actor subsequently switched allegiance to the SP and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1994.
In the 1999 general election, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Agra constituency and retained this seat in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls as well. However, he was suspended from the SP in February 2006 for his outbursts against the party. In October 5, 2008, he formally joined the Congress at a massive rally in Agra.
In the by-election to the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat held in November 2009, he emerged victorious on a Congress ticket. However, he suffered a setback by losing to the BJP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Ghaziabad and Fatehpur Sikri respectively.
In the meantime, he was a member of the Rajya Sabha from March 2015 to November 2020. Most importantly, he served as the Uttar Pradesh Congress president from 2016 to 2019.
