The political landscape took an unexpected turn on Tuesday as former Rajasthan Congress leader Radhika Khera announced her departure from the party to join the ranks of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Khera, who previously served as a spokesperson for the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and held the position of Congress National Media Coordinator, cited allegations of harassment by senior party members as the impetus behind her decision.
She tendered her resignation from the Congress over the weekend, alluding to distressing events that made her fear for her life. Khera’s educational background is substantial, with studies at the Convent of Jesus And Mary and a bachelor’s degree from the Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, as indicated on her LinkedIn profile.
Stepping into the BJP, Khera expressed her gratitude towards the leadership, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and party president J.P. Nadda, for embracing her into what she referred to as their “big family”. The move came after a period of discomfort within the Congress, which Khera connected to her devout Hindu faith and activities, leading her to brand the current party as “anti-Ram” and “anti-Hindu”.
Her decision followed an unsettling incident that occurred after a pilgrimage to the Ayodhya temple. Khera recounted being disrespected and manhandled, a treatment that starkly contradicted the values she stood for. She attributed her safety to the BJP-led government following the alleged attack, which she claimed would have been impossible without their intervention.
“The manner in which I was misbehaved with, in the land of Kaushalya Mata, for being a devotee of Ram, for having darshan of Ram Lalla, I would not have been able to reach here if I had not got the protection of the BJP government, the Modi government,” Khera stated, denouncing the Congress for deviating from Mahatma Gandhi’s principles.
The distress didn’t end there, as Khera voiced her grievances with how she was ignored by the top brass of the Congress when she sought justice. She pointed fingers at Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and Sachin Pilot for remaining muted on the issue of her maltreatment post her Ayodhya visit. The irony, as she highlighted, was particularly sharp given Rahul Gandhi’s public calls for women’s empowerment.
The rupture between Khera and Congress seemingly initiated after her visit to the Ayodhya Ram Temple. Her act of sharing videos and photos of the temple and her subsequent celebration of the ‘Pran pratishtha’ ceremony of the Ram Mandir with her family irked some party members. Khera claimed that such acts led to a burgeoning resentment from within the Congress, which crescendoed into an allegation of confinement and abuse within the premises of the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress office.
“I always heard that Congress is anti-Ram, anti-Sanatan, and anti-Hindu but I never believed it,” she said, detailing her shock upon her return from the pilgrimage. “I got exposed to this reality when I went to the Ram temple with my grandmother and after returning from there, I put a ‘Jai Shri Ram’ flag on the door of my house and after that, the Congress party started hating me.”
With these unsettling claims, Radhika Khera’s departure from the Indian National Congress and alignment with the BJP marks a significant personal and political shift, one that has stirred discussions on the notions of faith, party ideologies, and the internal dynamics of one of India’s longest-standing political organizations. The incident has highlighted the delicate interplay between personal beliefs and political allegiance in the contemporary Indian political theatre.
