BJP says Ghulam Nabi Azad welcome in party, calls Congress's situation 'suicidal'

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New Delhi: Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kuldeep Bishnoi on Friday alleged that Congress is "in self-destruction mode" and targeted party leader Rahul Gandhi. Bishnoi said senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who left the Congress on Friday was welcome in the BJP and he is willing to persuade him if the party so wants. "It won`t be wrong to say that Congress is in self-destruction, suicidal mode. I suggest Rahul Gandhi sets aside his ego...Ghulam Nabi Azad is welcome in BJP. If the party asks me, then I can persuade him to join the party," he said.

He alleged that Rahul Gandhi is surrounded by people who do not have any experience in the field and who have not ever fought any elections.

"This is not the same Congress, the party has strayed from its ideology. They no longer follow the ideology that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi used to...There is a coterie culture inside the party that lets them make decisions according to their own ease and benefits.”

"I was suffocated when I was a part of Congress. I and my father were associated with Congress for more than 53 years. My father basically built Congress in Haryana and when I and leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, RPN Singh and now Gulam Nabi Azad can quit the party... this states that somewhere fault lies within the party and not with leaders," he added.

Bishnoi had left Congress and joined BJP earlier this month. Bishnoi, who attended the last rites of late BJP leader Sonali Phogat here, said that the case should be handed over to CBI.

The Goa police on Friday arrested the two persons accused in connection with the alleged murder of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sonali Phogat.

The police have arrested Phogat`s PA Sudhir Sangwan and his associate Sukhwinder Singh and have taken them for a medical checkup. The accused were arrested in the case earlier in the day after the police accessed the CCTV footage of the accused and the deceased partying at a club.