Former BJP leader Ram Tahal Choudhary, who had represented Ranchi five times in Lok Sabha, and who joined the Congress in Delhi on March 29, quit the Congress party on Saturday. 

Choudhary remained in the Congress party for less than a month. He had said that he had joined the grand old party “unconditionally”. 

However, for the Congress which lost its lone sitting Lok Sabha MP in Jharkhand (Geeta Koda) to the BJP last month this was a morale victory. 

This moral victory dashed to the ground today. Insiders said that since the ticket for the Ranchi LS seat was given to the senior Congress leader and ex-Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay’s daughter Yashaswini Sahay, Choudhary felt disheartened and left the Congress. 

Earlier, three-term MLA and BJP’s chief whip in the Jharkhand Assembly Jai Prakash Bhai Patel had joined the Congress this month and his name was declared as a candidate for the Hazaribagh parliamentary seat later. 

Incidentally, Ram Tahal Choudhary had contested as an Independent candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls after being denied a ticket by the BJP and had fetched only 2.5 per cent votes. 

The seat was eventually won by the BJP’s Sanjay Seth with Congress’ Subodh Kant Sahay in the second position.