The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today appointed former Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill its national spokesperson, and former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Sunil Jakhar — as well as its former Uttar Pradesh president Swatantra Dev Singh — as members of its national executive, the party said in a statement.

The BJP made former president of Uttarakhand Madan Kaushik and that of Chhattisgarh Vishnu Deo Sai, besides Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Manoranjan Kalia and Amanjot Kaur Ramoowalia from Punjab special invitees to the national executive, the party said.

Shergill, a lawyer by profession who was one of the prominent ones among young Punjab Congress leaders, had tendered his resignation on 24 August. In his dramatic exit from the Indian National Congress (INC), Shergill had slammed the Nehru-Gandhis, saying the “vision of the party’s decision-makers is no longer in sync” with the aspirations of the youth and that sycophancy was “eating the Congress like ‘termites'”.

All three Gandhis had denied Shergill a meeting for over a year, he told reporters, adding that he had “severed all ties” with the party. The 39-year-old lawyer was among the youngest and most prominent spokespersons of Punjab Congress.

Former Punjab Congress chief Jakhar parted ways with the INC in May this year.

Capt Singh quit the INC after he was unceremoniously removed as Punjab chief minister last year. The former chief minister, who joined politics in 1969, floated his own political outfit Punjab Lok Congress after quitting the Congress. He merged his outfit with the BJP after he joined the party.

It is believed that it was for the alliance with Capt Singh’s breakway Punjab Congress that the Narendra Modi government had withdrawn the three far-reaching agricultural reform laws. Privileged and rich farmers of Punjab were on the forefront of the agitation against the laws. However, even as the gambit did not pay off and the party put up a dismal performance at the state assembly election that the Aam Aadmi Party went on to win, the laws were not reinstated.