If Vithalbhai Togadia, younger brother of VHP international general secretary Pravin Togadia, surprised Amreli by switching loyalty to the Congress, this “conversion” in Surat has stunned the BJP. Because Nilesh Luhar, once a powerful Bajrang Dal leader who was in the forefront of the anti-conversion drive against Christian missionaries in the Dangs, is now general secretary of the Gujarat Youth Congress.

Luhar’s sixth floor apartment in Vyara is strewn with magazines dating back to 2002, complete with pictures of him waving a trishul. But that’s about the only reminder he has kept of his past. Luhar now swears by Saheb — Mandvi Congress MP Tushar Chaudhary — and has even tied the Congress sash on his stuffed tiger toy. He says he’s not surprised by the rebellion in the BJP ranks which has made the party somewhat nervous ahead of the Assembly polls.

A high school dropout who joined the Bajrang Dal, Luhar came to the Parivar’s notice when he led from the front in opposing the missionaries in the Dangs. He rose up the ranks quickly to become the Bajrang Dal chief of Surat. During the Vaghela government’s rule in the late Nineties, he was jailed under the PASA (Prevention of Anti-Social Activities) Act.

But Luhar gave up on the Parivar long before the rebellion against Modi by a section of the BJP. He fell out in 2003-2004 and that too for a purely apolitical reason — it was a proposal by BJP leaders and the state government to raze a slum near the Vyara Market Yard for a college that raised his hackles.

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