Actor-turned-politician Kushboo joins BJP hours after quitting Congress

New Delhi: Actor-turned-politician Kushboo Sundar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party here on Monday, hours after she quit the Congress. 

Speaking to reporters at the joining ceremony, the actor from Tamil Nadu said she had come to the understanding over a period of time that if the nation has to move forward, then someone like Prime Minister Narendra Modi is needed to take the country "in the right direction and to its glory".

A national spokesperson of the Congress, she resigned from the party protesting against what she called some leaders' "dictating terms" and "suppressing" her.

The party, meanwhile, announced in Delhi that Kushboo was removed from her post of All India Congress Committee spokesperson with "immediate effect."

Kushboo, a popular Tamil actor, who was with the DMK before joining the national party in 2014 sent her resignation letter to Congress top leader Sonia Gandhi earlier today.

"Few elements seated at higher level within the party, people who have no connectivity with the ground reality or public recognition are dictating terms and people like me who wanted to work for the party sincerely are being pushed and suppressed," she said.

She said that it was "after a long and thorough thought process over a period of time", that she decided to end her association with the Congress party.

Assembly polls are due in Tamil Nadu in the first half of the next year, and the BJP hopes the her induction will be a boost to it. 

The BJP has long been a marginal force in the southern state where two Dravidian parties, the AIADMK and the DMK, have been the main contenders for power.

(With inputs from PTI)