CHANDIGARH: Dalit politician Ashok Tanwar’s return to Congress on Thursday is being seen by political analysts as unlikely to benefit the party. However, the timing of his switch, on the same day BJP ran advertisements accusing Congress of being anti-Dalit, has become a talking point.
Just hours before his re-entry into Congress, Tanwar had campaigned for BJP’s Ram Kumar Gautam in Jind district.He had been actively stumping for the party across multiple constituencies. On Wednesday, Tanwar was in Hisar’s Nalwa seat, where he campaigned for BJP’s Randhir Panihar and criticised Congress for “spreading misinformation about Modi govt with foreign funding”. While campaigning for BJP, he said: “Congress has always used Dalits for vote banks… It is time that people teach Congress a lesson.”
Tanwar deleted all his social media posts criticising the Congress party after switching sides.
His political career has seen him move through several parties over the past few years. He joined BJP on Jan 20, following his departure from AAP, and was fielded from Sirsa (reserved) seat in Lok Sabha elections, replacing sitting BJP MP Sunita Duggal. However, he lost to Congress’s Kumari Selja. Tanwar had joined AAP in April 2022. AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had appointed him chairman of the party’s election campaign committee. However, he quit in Jan 2023, citing his discomfort with AAP’s growing alignment with Congress.
His brief stint in AAP followed an earlier jump to Trinamool Congress in Nov 2021. Before that, Tanwar had launched his own political outfit, Apna Bharat Morcha, in Feb 2021, after resigning from Congress in 2019. He had been a member of Congress for decades, starting as president of NSUI and later leading Youth Congress. He became Sirsa MP in 2009 and served as Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee president from 2014 to 2019 but left the party due to ‘disputes’ with Hooda.