New Delhi
Former NCP leader and five-time Lok Sabha MP Tariq Anwar on Saturday joined the Congress which he quit 19 years ago to protest the foreign origins of then party chief Sonia Gandhi.

“I am grateful to Congress president Rahul Gandhi who let me return to the party after so many years. The country is passing through a sensitive phase. It is time for everyone who ever quit the Congress for some reason or the other to return and strengthen the hands of Rahul Gandhi,” said Anwar, 67, who stepped down from the Nationalist Congress Party and his Lok Sabha membership from Katihar on September 28.

A former Congress man who first contested Katihar parliamentary segment in 1977 and lost, Anwar went on to serve five terms in the Lower House.

He has also been Rajya Sabha MP twice, besides having held the positions of Bihar Congress president and national president, Indian Youth Congress.

Anwar is remembered most for joining his Congress colleagues Sharad Pawar and PA Sangma in a rebellion against Sonia Gandhi, who had taken over as party chief in 1999.

The trio faced expulsion from the Congress for challenging Gandhi’s Italian origins. They quit the Congress to form the NCP.

A long time aide of Pawar, Anwar severed ties with the NCP after Pawar recently backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as someone whose personal integrity was not in question. Pawar’s statement came at the height of the Rafale controversy. Though the NCP supremo later clarified he had been misquoted, Anwar quit the NCP citing differences with him.

Anwar said: “It is crucial to strengthen the Congress to defeat communal forces that are harming the plural fabric of the country.”

Welcoming Anwar to the Congress, AICC general secretary organisation Ashok Gehlot also appealed to former Congress persons to return to their parent party to fight the ruling BJP at the Centre.

“We all make mistakes but this is the time to forget everything and return to the Congress. I appeal to everyone who left the party to come back,” said Gehlot.