Galib said, “I have taken this decision with a heavy heart. The Congress is now ruled by sycophants and those who dare to air their views are sidelined and ignored. Even senior Congress leader Margaret Alva has been sidelined.”

Galib, who was at present senior vice-president of the PPCC, has sent his resignation to AICC president Sonia Gandhi.

Denying that he had left the Congress as he was not likely to get the party ticket from the city, he said, “I would have resigned from the party in 2004 itself had I wanted to quit for want of party ticket. I have taken this step as I was being ignored. I felt suffocated in the party of which I was a member for the last five decades.” Taking a dig at AICC spokesperson Manish Tewari, who is likely to get the party ticket from Ludhiana, Galib said he was an outsider, who belonged to the “five-star culture”.

Already in SAD mould
Though initially Galib had said that he had expressed his inclination to join the SAD, later on being coaxed by media he asserted that he would join the SAD at tomorrow’s SAD-BJP rally. Soon after, he showered praises on the SAD and the previous NDA government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee. “I think regional parties are better than national parties in protecting the rights of their states,” he said. Galib has learnt the Akali rhetoric already. He said, “The Congress government, led by Amarinder Singh, had not brought any major project to the state.”