Ex-BJP MP Savitri Bai Phule now quits Congress; to float new political outfit

Lucknow: Former BJP MP from Bahriach Savitri Bai Phule, who left the party just before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and unsuccessfully contested  the Parliament polls on Congress ticket, resigned from the grand-old party on Thursday.

Ms Phule, a Dalit, who had joined the  Congress in early 2019 and even accompanied Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to several places, including during the Sonebhadra violence,  when the Congress general secretary was detained at Mirzapur.

While talking to reporters here alleged that her voice is not being heard in the Congress and hence she had resigned."I will now form a new political party which will fight for the cause of the Dalit and other oppressed communities," she said.

The new party is slated to be announced on January 19 in Lucknow.Ms Phule, who won the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 from Bahriach seat on BJP ticket had resigned from the saffron party on December 6, 2018.

Phule, was a prominent Dalit woman face of the BJP and she had won the Balaha Assembly seat in 2012.(UNI)