Ending his family’s “55-year relationship” with the Congress, former Congress MP and Union Minister Milind Deora on Sunday became the latest high-profile leader to sever ties with the Opposition party. Deora joined the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena at an event in the Maharashtra CM’s presence. He is said to have been unhappy with the party about the possibility of his Mumbai South seat going to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) as part of a seat-sharing agreement. Deora lost the last two Lok Sabha elections to the Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant who is with the Thackeray-led party

When he entered Parliament for the first time in 2004, Deora was part of a group of young MPs considered to be close to Rahul Gandhi. Among them were Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Sachin Pilot, and R P N Singh. All of them, except Pilot, have left the Congress.

Here is a list of some of the big leaders who have quit the Congress since 2020.

Jyotiraditya Scindia

The four-time MP and former Union minister, a member of the erstwhile Gwalior royal family, quit the Congress in March 2020 with at least 22 MLAs in Madhya Pradesh to join the BJP. His exit precipitated the fall of the Congress-led Kamal Nath state government just over a year after it came to power.

In his resignation letter, Scindia described his exit as “a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year”. Indicating his disillusionment with the Congress, he wrote: “While my aim and purpose remain the same as it has always been from the very beginning, to serve the people of my state and country, I believe I am unable to do this anymore within this party.”

Notably, after the Congress’s 2019 Lok Sabha defeat, Scindia was among the names touted as possible successors to Rahul Gandhi as the Congress president in a potential move to reposition the grand old party as a young, modern outfit.

At present: Union Minister for Civil Aviation

Jitin Prasada

In June 2021, less than a year ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Prasada became the first of the Group of 23 Congress leaders to leave the party and join the BJP. The G-23 leaders had written to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking radical changes in the organisation.

Prasada had been associated with the Congress since 2001 and was a Union Minister of State under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The son of the late Congress veteran Jitendra Prasada, he was once seen as a “Young Turk” who would play a key role in Rahul Gandhi’s team.

“BJP is the only real political party and it is the only national party,” Prasada said after leaving the party. He has claimed that he had felt he was “only surrounded by politics” in his former party and was unable “to contribute and do my work for the benefit of the people”.

At present: Cabinet Minister in Yogi Adityanath-led UP government

Sushmita Dev

Dev was the All India Mahila Congress chief and one of the party’s prominent faces in Assam when she left the party in August 2021 to join the Trinamool Congress (TMC). She was later nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Dev, a noted member of Rahul’s team, was said to be unhappy about some of the decisions taken by the leadership in Assam.

The rumours of Dev being unhappy had been brewing since February 2021, when she was said to have walked out of a Congress meeting over the selection of candidates by the Congress and its then-ally AIUDF led by Badruddin Ajmal. Dev felt her “political space was being shrunk”, said sources.

At present: Rajya Sabha MP for TMC

Amarinder Singh

In November 2021, months before the Punjab Assembly polls, former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh quit the Congress and launched his own party, the Punjab Lok Congress. Less than a year later, he merged his party with the BJP.

In a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Singh said, “Despite my profound reservations and over the unanimous advice of almost all the MPs from Punjab, you chose to appoint an acolyte of the Pakistani deep state Navjyot Singh Sindhu who had publicly hugged the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Bajwa and Prime Minister Imran Khan, as the President of the Punjab Congress Committee.”

Before quitting the Congress, he had resigned as Punjab CM after a long spell of infighting in the state unit led to the party high command asking Singh to step down.

At present: BJP member

R P N Singh

Former Union minister R P N Singh joined the BJP in January 2022 ahead of the UP Assembly polls, saying the Congress was no longer the party it used to be. A three-time MLA, Singh spent more than three decades in the Congress. Earlier, his father Kunwar Chandra Pratap Narain was an MLA and two-time MP and a minister in the Indira Gandhi government in 1980.

“I have been in one party for the last 32 years, but today I must say that the party is no longer what it used to be, nor is its thought. Today, everyone knows that if there is one party that is working for the benefit of the people and is working on building the nation, it is the BJP,” Singh said the day he announced his departure. An OBC Kurmi leader belonging to the erstwhile Sainthwara royal family of eastern UP, Singh was never considered a political heavyweight.

At present: BJP member

Kapil Sibal

A Union Cabinet minister in the Manmohan Singh government, Kapil Sibal’s exit from the Congress in May 2022 came just two months after he openly asked the Gandhis to step aside from leadership roles and give some other leader a chance. Shortly afterwards, he filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha as an Independent candidate supported by the Samajwadi Party.

At the time, Sibal said he planned to unite the Opposition against the BJP government “which is following anti-people policies and which is dividing the inclusive culture of India”.

During his over three-decade association with the Congress, starting in 1991, Sibal was as close to some of the regional satraps — such as Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav and later his son Akhilesh Yadav — as he was to the power centres in the Congress. In the Congress, he worked closely with the late Ahmed Patel, which ensured his proximity to Sonia. He, however, could never establish a good working relationship with Rahul Gandhi.

At present: Rajya Sabha MP

Sunil Jakhar

The same month, the Congress’s former state Punjab president Sunil Jakhar quit the party in a Facebook live video, casting serious aspersions about Sonia Gandhi’s handling of party affairs. Days later, he joined the BJP.

The three-time MLA and one-time MP had been served show-cause notice in April 2022 for “not toeing the party line” and making remarks against senior Congress leadership. Jakhar, however, never responded to the notice.

At present: Punjab BJP president since July 2023

Ghulam Nabi Azad

In August 2022, veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad quit the Congress. In a five-page letter addressed to then party president Sonia Gandhi, Azad said the situation in the Congress had reached a point of “no return”. A former CM of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and a former Union minister, Azad floated his own outfit, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party, the following month.

“The entire organisational election process is a farce and a sham. At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC have been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting at 24 Akbar Road,” said Azad, who was a prominent signatory to the G-23 letter.

He was especially critical of Rahul Gandhi, saying that following his entry into politics, more so after he was appointed the vice-president of the party in 2013, “the entire consultative mechanism which existed earlier was demolished by him”.

At present: Democratic Progressive Azad Party leader

Jaiveer Shergill

Shergill was the Congress national spokesperson when he quit in August 2022, the same month as Azad. He resigned saying “sycophancy” had taken precedence over merit in the party. He also said he had not been able to get an audience with the leadership because of his lack of proximity to a “certain coterie”. He joined the BJP that December.

Hailing from Jalandhar, he entered the Congress through a “talent hunt” conducted by the party in 2014 to identify young and articulate faces. He was appointed as a national media panellist in 2014 and elevated to a national spokesperson in 2018.

At present: BJP national spokesperson