Former Union minister Jayanthi Natarajan met BJP president Amit Shah after quitting the Congress Party. The meeting has taken place recently during the Winter Session of Parliament.
Ms Natarajan has said “an atmosphere of lies and suffocation” has taken over the party of which she was a member for over 30 years. She publicly today slammed Rahul Gandhi, No 2 in the Congress, for providing “specific inputs” on mega-projects who were declined clearances by her as Environment Minister. Mr Gandhi, she said, later seemed to blame her for stalling progress and development; she also alleged that his associates planted stories in the media to counter the party line that when she was asked to resign as minister in December 2013, it was because she was assigned to help the party prepare for the national election.
Incidentally, Krishna Tirath, who was also a Union minister in the Congress-led government, moved to the BJP just weeks ago.