Former Congress minister Udesinh Baria joins BJP

In a setback to Congress ahead of the 2012 state assembly polls, senior tribal leader, All India Congress Committee (AICC) member for the last 20 years, five-time MLA from Halol town of Panchamahal, and former minister, Udesinh Baria, today defected to ruling BJP.

Baria has also served as Congress party’s secretary. He was Law minister in the Congress government in 1994-95.

While joining the BJP, Baria said, “the Congress party has changed. Under leaders like Indira Gandhi and Madhavsinh Solanki (former Gujarat chief minister) it (Congress) used to work for upliftment of the poor, but now it is headed by corrupt event managers who have become brokers of power and are in the process of destroying leaders coming from the common background. I don’t want to waste my time by clinging to the Congress party”.

Praising Modi, he said, “it is for the first time after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that Gujarat has got a strong leader in Narendra Modi. The state has progressed and is working for the uplift of poor people”.