Though detractors term it a `marriage of convenience', Vaghela announced at the reception given to welcome him that the Congress was going to be the last party in his career as a politician and that his main objective of joining it was to throw the ``corrupt'' Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of power both at the Centre and in Gujarat.

``I will see to it that the 1998 Lok Sabha election result is reversed and the BJP gets even less than seven seats in Gujarat,'' Vaghela said. ``Who can know the BJP better than I do? And I tell you friends, there is no need to be afraid of the BJP...it is just like a TB patient who looks okay only because of drugs,'' he assured his new-found colleagues in the Congress, telling them that to adopted an aggressive posture against the BJP.

Realising full well the doubts within the Congress, Vaghela said he was a man of organisation and that ``there will not be an RJP group within the Congress..I will not present anyone's case as RJP man in the party''.

The presence of senior leader Madhavsinh Solanki indicated that the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Muslim and Adivasi) equation was going to be exploited to the Congress' advantage, now that Vaghela had joined them.

Welcoming the RJP, GPCC president C D Patel said he was particularly happy that the RJP had adopted a one-line resolution empowering Vaghela to deal with the Congress on the merger issue.

The convergence of secular forces was necessary to defeat communal parties like the BJP, he said.

Later addressing a press conference, Patel and Vaghela said the July 17 rally where AICC president Sonia Gandhi was to be present would be an unprecedented event in the State's history and more than five lakh would be present.

Asked about the State Government's decision to cancel land allotment to his Gandhinagar Charitable Trust, Vaghela said the move would be challenged in court.

C D Patel said that though the merger was unconditional, care would be taken to accommodate senior leaders in the party organisation at all levels right from taluka to the PCC. The leaders present at the press conference were former chief ministers Madhavsinh Solanki, Amarsinh Chaudhary, Chhabildas Mehta, Dilip Parikh, former Union minister Urmilaben Patel, B K Gadhvi, Vipul Chaudhry, Arvind Sanghvi and Irshad Mirza, among others.

Meanwhile, the BJP has claimed that the only fallout of the Congress-RJP merger would be that one more group would be added in the Congress which was already suffering from severe groupism. Party general secretary Gordhanbhai Zadaphia in a statement ridiculed the reception accorded to Vaghela by Congress leaders saying commending the armed forces on the Kargil front was more important.