New Delhi [India], May 7 : Former Congress leader Radhika Khera and actor Shekhar Suman joined the Bhartiya Janata Party at the BJP headquarters in the national capital on Tuesday amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
They were inducted into the BJP fold in the presence of party leaders including BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde.
The former Congress National Media Coordinator, Radhika Khera expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, and JP Nadda for welcoming her into the BJP.
Khera, had on Sunday quit the Congress party accusing it of being anti-Ram and anti-Hindu and recounted an incident where she said she was disrespected and allegedly manhandled after visiting the Ayodhya temple.
Meanwhile, 'Heeramandi' actor Suman had fought the Lok Sabha election in 2009 from Bihar's Patna Sahib on a Congress ticket and lost to BJP's Shatrughan Sinha.
Radhika Khera said, "The manner in which I was misbehaved with, in the land of Kaushalya Mata for being a devotee of Ram, for having darshan of Ram Lalla, I would not have been able to reach here if I had not got the protection of the BJP government, the Modi government. Today's Congress is not Mahatma Gandhi's Congress, it is anti-Ram, anti-Hindu Congress. My mother, who is a devotee of Lord Ram, along with whom I went to visit the temple, and my whole family celebrated the Pran partishtha ceremony of Ram Mandir, but the way I was treated for that, I am shivering even today as I remember that time."
"I would like to thank PM Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda for giving me the opportunity to be a part of such a big family of Ram Lalla," she said.
Speaking with ANI, Khera also criticized the Congress leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Sachin Pilot, for their silence regarding the mistreatment she faced after visiting the Ram temple.
"After I visited the Ram temple, some party leaders misbehaved with me and when I asked for justice, be it Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, I always asked for justice and those who are accused are still holding positions in the party. Rahul Gandhi keeps talking about women empowerment, but when an injustice happened to a woman in his own party, he is silent," Khera said.
The former Chhattisgarh Congress leader who resigned from the party earlier this month claimed that the Congress began to "hate her" after she visited the Ayodhya Ram Temple and was reprimanded for sharing videos or photos of the grand temple.
Radhika alleged that she was locked inside a room and was manhandled inside the Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress office, after her April 25 visit to the Ayodhya Ram temple.
"I always heard that Congress is anti-Ram, anti-Sanatan and anti-Hindu but I never believed it. Mahatma Gandhi used to start every meeting with 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram'. I got exposed to this reality when I went to the Ram temple with my grandmother and after returning from there, I put a 'Jai Shri Ram' flag on the door of my house and after that, the Congress party started hating me. Whenever I posted photos or videos, I was scolded and asked why did I visit Ayodhya when elections were under way," Khera said.