Madhya Pradesh MLA Samandar Patel, a Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalist who defected to BJP in 2020 bringing down the Kamal Nath-led government, returned to the Congress party on Friday, as he was “feeling suffocated” with the saffron party.
This makes Patel the third Scindia loyalist over the last few months to have gone back to Congress.
“I left the party with Maharaj (Scindia). But soon, I felt suffocated within the BJP. I was not invited to any events. I was not given respect and a position of power,” Patel told The Indian Express.
Considered among one of the richest leaders in the state with declared assets of Rs 89 crore in his poll affidavit, Patel led a “1,200 car convoy” while travelling from his constituency Jawad to Bhopal to submit his resignation papers at the BJP office.
The other two MLAs who also cut ties with Scindia and returned to Congress had also resigned in a similar fashion. On June 14, Shivpuri BJP leader Baijnath Singh Yadav cut ties with Scindia and organised a 700-car rally. Former BJP Shivpuri district vice president Rakesh Kumar Gupta followed suit on June 26, also organising a car rally.
Patel is from the Dhakad community, which is categorised as Other Backward Class (OBC) and has a 24% vote share in Jawad. He has first returned to the Congress in 2018 after being denied a ticket in that year’s Assembly polls.
He contested as an Independent that year, cutting into the Congress’s prospects by polling 35,000 votes on his own and polled 35,000 votes on his own and won the seat.
He rejoined the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving it soon after, in March 2020, with Scindia’s group of 22 MLAs.
Earlier, as soon as he joined the ruling party, Patel got into a public feud with state Cabinet minister Omprakash Saklecha. He alleged that his supporters were always humiliated by Sakhlecha’s camp, and multiple false cases were filed against them over petty fights.
“That was when I decided to leave,” Patel said.