In a big boost to Congress several high profile leaders from Uttar Pradesh are likely to join the party on Thursday.
Prominent among them are former BSP stalwart and MLC Naseemuddin Siddiqui, former MP Salim Ansari, former MLA Farhat Hasan alias Haji Shabban, former MLC Athar Khan, former MLC OP Singh, and dozens of ex MLAs.
According to sources close to these leaders, they will join the Congress ‘in the presence of Rahul Gandhi at the AICC headquarters on Akbar Road in Delhi. Siddiqui has reportedly met Gandhi at least three times before agreeing to join the Congress.
Siddiqui was expelled from the BSP last year in May after Mayawati’s party, the BSP, faced a humiliating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Siddiqui had later released a series of explosive audios of Mayawati alleging that the BSP supremo had pressurised him to extort money from the election candidates.
At a crowded press conference, an angry Siddiqui had claimed that he had enough material to cause an “earthquake”.