Rajasthan BJP MLA Habibur Rahman joins Congress after Dausa MP Harish Meena

The ruling BJP in Rajasthan suffered another setback ahead of the December 7 assembly election when its Nagaur MLA, Habibur Rahman, returned to the Congress after a decade. He joined at the party’s Jaipur office in the presence of Ajmer MP Raghu Sharma and other leaders. Also that day, Harish Chandra Meena, the BJP MP from Dausa, switched to the Congress in New Delhi.

Rahman’s return

Rahman started out in the Congress, serving as a state minister from 2001 to 2003 under Ashok Gehlot. He moved to the BJP in 2008 after the Congress refused him a ticket, and won the 2008 and 2013 elections on a BJP ticket. When the BJP chose Mohan Ram Choudhary for Nagaur this time, he left.

“I have returned home today,” Rahman told reporters, adding that there were no conditions attached. Asked whether he would contest, he replied, “Who does not want to contest elections?” Raghu Sharma said the Congress list would be released only after party president Rahul Gandhi’s final approval.

War of words over Meena

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Kirori Meena called Harish Chandra Meena an opportunist and said his exit would have no effect on the party’s performance. Raghu Sharma hit back, pointing out that Kirori Meena’s wife Golma Devi had been a minister in the previous Congress government, that he had contested in 2013 for the National People’s Party before joining the BJP, and that his wife had now been given a BJP ticket.

Harish Chandra Meena, a former IPS officer who headed the state police under Gehlot, joined in the presence of Gehlot, state Congress chief Sachin Pilot and AICC in-charge Avinash Pande. He had joined the BJP in March 2014 and won Dausa against Kirori Lal Meena, then of the National People’s Party, by 45,404 votes; his brother Namonarain Meena, then a Union minister, finished third.

What happened next

The Congress won 99 of the 199 seats that voted on 7 December 2018 and Ashok Gehlot became Chief Minister.

Originally published on 15 November 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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