One is a former MP, accused of murder and had spent over five years in prison, till his acquittal over a decade ago. The other faced abuse on the floor of the Parliament from a BJP MP and was later suspended by his own party, the BSP.

On Wednesday both made the Congress their new home.

Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, a multiple-term former MP from north Bihar, and Danish Ali, the sitting BSP MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha, were both inducted into the Congress in New Delhi.

Yadav had met the RJD chief and one of the most vocal supporters of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Bihar’s opposition leader Tejashvi Yadav on Tuesday, which probably paved the way for a reconciliation and a nudge for Pappu Yadav towards the Congress.

In 2015, when RJD joined hands with the Congress and Nitish Kumar’s JDU ahead of the state Assembly polls Pappu Yadav, then an RJD MP, was suspended and floated his own party.

“What I share with Lalu Yadav is not political but an emotional tie. Yesterday all of us sat down together,” said Yadav. “We will direct all our efforts to stop the BJP in Seemanchal and Mithilanchal at all costs. Rahul Gandhi has won the hearts of the people and given them hope.”

The regions referred by Yadav comprise of Araria, Madhepura, Saharsa, Supaul, Purnea, Kishanganj, Katihar, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Bhagalpur.

In 2015, Yadav was counted among the top parliamentarians from Bihar having participated in the most number of debates in the Lok Sabha.

Ali had won from Amroha on a BSP ticket and was suspended by the party in December 2023 for extending support to the expelled Trinamul MP Mahua Moitra.

Ali had faced communal abuse from the BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri in September last year, which were later expunged from Parliamentary records. Soon after the BSP suspended him, Ali joined Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Manipur as well as when the Congress MP passed through Amroha. He also met Sonia Gandhi ahead of Wednesday’s joining.

“On one side are divisive forces and on the other are those forces fighting for nyay (justice) for the poor and oppressed sections of society, and the choice is very clear,” Ali said after his induction into the Congress.

Before the BSP, Ali was a Rajya Sabha member of the Janata Dal (Secular) from Karnataka.

"The ideology with which we started our politics...we have to now strengthen the forces fighting against those divisive forces. That is why I took this important decision while charting my future political journey by becoming a member of the Indian National Congress," he told reporters.Both the new recruits are most likely to contest on a Congress ticket. Amroha will go to vote on the second phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh on April 26, while Madhepura from where Yadav had defeated the socialist Sharad Yadav in 2014, will go to polls on May 7 in the third phase of polling.

Also joining the Congress was former BJP leader from Jharkhand Jai Prakash Bhai Patel, while the sitting Congress MP from Assam’s Barpeta Abdul Khaliq who had quit the party took back his resignation, much to the relief of the grand old party.