Deepak Joshi, the former BJP minister who had joined Congress last year due to a rift with then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has rejoined the saffron party in the presence of Chouhan at Budhni.

Deepak Joshi (61), son of the founder member of the Jan Sangh and former BJP CM late Kailash Joshi, had quit the saffron party and joined the Congress on 6 May 2023, about six months before the state assembly polls.

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After joining the Congress, he had made several allegations against Shivraj Singh Chouhan. He had even charged the saffron party with ruining the Jansangh’s legacy.

The former minister had accused Chouhan and the BJP of not honouring the late Kailash Joshi’s legacy. He alleged that the then CM took more than 30 months to accord permission to build a memorial at Hatpipliya in the Dewas district, from where Deepak Joshi won the assembly seat twice and had become a minister in the Shivraj Singh cabinet.

The Congress party had given Joshi a ticket from the Khategaon constituency in the state assembly elections of 2023 but he lost the polls. Recently, Madhya Pradesh Congress Chief Jitu Patwari did not include Deepak Joshi in the list of functionaries announced in the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee.

Consequently, Deepak Joshi staged his ‘ghar waapsi’ (homecoming) after exactly one-and-a-half-years and rejoined the BJP at Budhni in the presence of Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday, six days before the Assembly by-election at Budhni scheduled for 13 November.

Deepak Joshi is a three-time BJP MLA from the Bagli and Hatpipliya assembly seats of MP. After his third win, Joshi was made a minister in 2013 in CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet.