The daughter of veteran socialist Sharad Yadav, the booming anti-Congress voice since the 70’s who changed his opinion of the party in recent years, on Wednesday joined the Congress.

Subhasini Yadav will contest the Bihar Assembly election from a seat in Madhepura, the parliamentary constituency represented by her father several times. The Congress had approached the ailing Sharad Yadav with the offer.

He has radically changed his perspective over the past few years, arguing that anti-Congressism has lost its relevance under the present political circumstances. Although he was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, he now sees the RSS-BJP politics as a threat to India’s polity and believes that the Opposition parties should rally behind the Congress to protect India’s liberal and secular democracy.

Yadav snapped ties with his party Janata Dal United when Nitish Kumar chose to betray the people’s mandate and dump Lalu Prasad’s RJD and Congress — parties in alliance with whom he had fought the election and become chief minister — to team up with the BJP. He lost his Rajya Sabha membership, but openly argued that no secular democrat should have any association with the Narendra Modi-led BJP. He developed a strong rapport with Rahul Gandhi.

Subhasini is married into a business family of Haryana.