Deepak Joshi returns to BJP, Chouhan hugs him on stage

Bhopal: Former minister Deepak Joshi, who quit the BJP and joined the Congress before the assembly elections last year, returned to the saffron party on Thursday. He is the son of former CM and Jan Sangh founder member Kailash Joshi, who is still regarded as a patriarch in the BJP. While in the Congress, Deepak Joshi contested the assembly election from the Khategaon seat and was defeated by BJP's Aashish Govind Sharma by a margin of 12,542 votes.Eighteen months after he left the BJP, Deepak Joshi returned to the party fold on Thursday in the presence of Union Minister for Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan at a public meeting in Nandner in the Budhni assembly constituency. Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan gave him primary membership of the party.Joshi made serious allegations against the BJP regime under former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan when he left the party. "I am Jan Sangh's Deepak," he said and claimed he was leaving BJP after being ill-treated because he lost the 2018 assembly election. He also said that the BJP govt was not running according to Jan Sangh principles.In the state Congress office, six months before the 2023 assembly elections, Deepak Joshi claimed that when his wife was infected with the coronavirus, he asked Dewas district administration govt for an ambulance to take her to a big hospital in Indore. "But the Dewas collector was ordered not to listen to what Deepak Joshi says. This was the instruction from Chief Minister Chouhan. No ambulance came and my wife died," Joshi alleged when joining Congress on May 6, 2023, before former Chief Minister Kamal Nath.Joshi also made corruption allegations in the BJP govt. He argued that if it was 40% commission in Karnataka, then it was 80% in Madhya Pradesh.On Thursday, Shivraj Singh Chouhan hugged Deepak Joshi on the dais in Nandner as he returned to the saffron party. Eight months ago, Joshi was trying to return to the BJP, but not all were in agreement, especially after the kind of allegations he made while quitting. State BJP Chief VD Sharma and former Home Minister Narottam Mishra asked him to apologise before certain party stalwarts to open doors for his return. Joshi at the time said that some persons made his return a personal issue.Deepak Joshi's return to BJP is being seen as a major jolt to the Congress party before the bypoll in the Budhni assembly seat. Four days ago, Joshi was campaigning and addressing public meetings in favour of Congress candidate Rajkumar Patel in the constituency going for bypoll on Nov 13. But four days later, he was being hugged and welcomed back into the saffron fold by Shivraj Singh Chouhan. MSID::