Former Union minister Suresh Pachouri along with eleven other Congress leaders joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bhopal on Saturday ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The politicians joined the BJP in the presence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, state BJP President VD Sharma and former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Pachouri was the Union Minister of State for Defence in the PV Narasimha Rao government and a Rajya Sabha MP from the Congress for four terms. He had also served as the party’s Madhya Pradesh chief in the late 2000s.

After joining the BJP, Pachouri said that Congress, which used to claim to be a casteless and classless party, was dividing the country on the lines of caste, reported PTI. “Congress is now talking about the caste divide, which has resulted in increasing caste conflict in the country,” he said.

Chouhan said that Pachouri did not put any conditions before joining the BJP, PTI reported.

“Pachouri ji joined the BJP without setting any conditions,” the BJP leader said. “When Pachouri Ji was asked about it, he said Congress has become irrelevant and doesn’t have leadership and policy. He wanted to serve the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.”

On Thursday, Pachouri resigned from the Congress. In a letter to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, the former minister said that the party has digressed from its values.

Other Congress leaders who joined the saffron party along with Pachouri include former Congress MP Gajendra Singh Rajukhedi, former Congress MLAs Sanjay Shukla, who represented the Indore-1 constituency, Arjun Paliya from Pipariya and Vishal Patel from Depalpur.

Rajukhedi, who is an Adivasi leader, had won the Dhar Lok Sabha constituency for the Congress in 1998, 1999 and 2009. Before joining the Congress, he was a BJP MLA in 1990.