Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Sinh and two MLAs from Maharashtra quit the Congress on Tuesday, dealing the demoralised party yet another blow as it continued to grapple with a leadership crisis.

Sinh, who is from Amethi’s royal family, resigned from the Congress and as Rajya Sabha member while declaring that he would join the BJP on Wednesday.

The Congress leadership, which had gone out of its way to nominate him to the Rajya Sabha from Assam despite strong opposition from the state unit, had reconciled to his exit before the Lok Sabha elections.

Although he contested the Lok Sabha poll from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh on a Congress ticket, his heart was not in the party and his supporters did not actively participate in Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in Amethi.

Sources said the differences between the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Amethi royal family widened after Rahul’s defeat and even basic communication stopped. Sinh’s wife Amita too is expected to cross over to the BJP.

Sinh said on Tuesday: “The Congress is still in the past, unaware of the future. Today, the country is with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and if the country is with him, I am with him. I will join the BJP tomorrow. I have resigned from the party, as well as my membership of the Rajya Sabha.”

He complained that the Congress never allowed internal dialogue.

This is not the first time Sinh has left the Congress. While he quit the Congress to go with V.P. Singh’s Janata Dal in 1988, he joined the BJP in 1998. He returned to the Congress in 2003. The highly ambitious politician, who has been a two-term MLA, two-term Rajya Sabha member and a two-term Lok Sabha MP, wanted to become the chief of the Uttar Pradesh Congress unit and also resented that he was not made a minister in the Manmohan Singh government.

In Maharashtra, four Opposition MLAs, two each from the Congress and the NCP, resigned from the Assembly amidst speculation about their shift to the BJP.

NCP legislators Shivendrasinhraje Bhosale (Satara) and Vaibhav Pichad (Akole) and Congress MLAs Sandeep Naik (Airoli) and Kalidas Kolambkar (Naigaon) handed over their resignation letters separately to Speaker Haribhau Bagade. The NCP’s Mumbai unit chief, Sachin Ahir, had a couple of days ago joined the Shiv Sena.

NCP leader Sharad Pawar had accused the government of misusing state agencies to arm-twist Opposition leaders to join the BJP.