Kerala politician AP Abdullakutty, who was recently ousted from the Congress party for praising Narendra Modi, officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday. He joined the party in the presence of BJP Working President JP Nadda in New Delhi. His entry into India’s ruling party comes days after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Abdullakutty had said that the Prime Minister has asked him to join BJP. "I had come to meet him to offer my support for his developmental activities," Abdullakutty said.
He was sacked from the Congress party on June 3 after he put up a post on Facebook praising PM Modi after the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) recorded a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha Elections and formed the government at the Centre for the second consecutive term. Though the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) had sent him a show cause notice and granted him five days to explain his remarks that he had put on Facebook, he did not submit a suitable explanation, as per the party.
A statement from the Congress had stated that the party had not found his explanation satisfactory and he was sacked for not following party discipline.
This was not the first instance where Abdullakutty has been ousted from a political party for praising Narendra Modi. Abdullakutty was CPI(M)’s sitting MP from the Kannur Lok Sabha constituency in 2009, when he was sacked from the party for praising Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat. After he was sacked from CPI(M), he joined the Congress.
AP Abdullakutty had risen to prominence after he defeated Congress’s Mullappally Ramachandran, who is presently the KPCC President, in the 1999 Lok Sabha Elections from Kannur. Abdullakutty managed to retain his seat in the 2004 elections as well. He had represented the CPI(M) in both the elections.