While exodus continues to haunt the grand old party, the Congress, with general elections around the corner, another family member of the party’s first family, Robert Vadra, is speculated to throw his hat in the ring in electoral battle from the erstwhile Gandhi-Nehru family bastion of Amethi which is currently represented by Union Minister Smriti Irani who defeated former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

On a day when three big leaders — Sanjay Nirupam, Gaurav Vallabh and Anil Sharma — quit the party, reports trickled that Priyanka Gandhi’s husband could be fielded from Amethi Lok Sabha as Rahul Gandhi apparently declined to contest again from Uttar Pradesh seat and filed his nominations from Wayanad in Kerala which he represents now.

Vallabh and Sharma joined the BJP on Thursday hours after they quit the Congress while Nirupam was yet to open his cards but asserted he will contest the Lok Sabha elections. Vallabh said he can neither raise anti-Sanatan slogans nor abuse “wealth creators” day in and day out and was joining the ruling party due to his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of “Viksit Bharat”.

Former Bihar Congress president Anil Sharma too joined the BJP in the presence of its national general secretary Vinod Tawde.  Vallabh, seen as an articulate Congress spokesperson, earlier shared his resignation letter written to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on social media platform X.

He said he was not feeling comfortable with the directionless way the party was moving.

Further, a day after being expelled from the Congress, former MP Nirupam hit out at the grand old party and claimed there is “tremendous arrogance” in the party leadership.

Nirupam further claimed the Congress is now history and has no future and that the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is a merger of three “sick units”.

The Opposition MVA comprises the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).

There are five power centres in the Congress — the three Gandhi family members, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and (party general secretary) K C Venugopal, Nirupam said. “The Nehruvian secularism which has no place for religion in the society has expired,” he claimed. Nirupam declined to spell out his future course of action, but  said he will contest the Lok Sabha poll and win. Nirupam, who was eyeing the Mumbai North West Lok Sabha constituency, has been miffed with the Congress for allowing the Shiv Sena (UBT) to take the seat for the parliamentary polls.