Capping his seven-year journey with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resignation of the party’s former Tamil Nadu chief K. Annamalai was formally accepted by party chief Nitin Nabin on Friday (June 5, 2026). As efforts to retain him in the saffron folds failed, the IPS-turned-politician is set to launch his own regional party. His exit has been long in the making since he egged BJP to split with AIADMK and contest Lok Sabha polls solo in 2024. 

“No one can put a gun to one’s head and force a person to remain in a party. I will stay if I like or I will quit if I do not and continue doing farming,” Mr. Annamalai had proclaimed in November last year as BJP rekindled alliance talks with the AIADMK, seven months after Mr. Annamalai was replaced by Nainar Nagendran as BJP Tamil Nadu president. 

The last high-profile exit from the BJP was in November last year when former Union Minister R.K. Singh was suspended after he criticised the BJP’s choice of candidates for Bihar State elections, pointing out their criminal background and corruption. After being handed a six-year suspension, Mr. Singh quit the party has since then promised to launch a Bihar-focused party which will comprise ‘honest, educated and caste-free’ individuals.

Through the years, several high-profile leaders have quit the BJP to launch their own parties. A deeper look at their journey shows that most have either disbanded and rejoined the party or merged their outfits with BJP. A few have jumped ship to other parties.

From Jana Sangh to BJP

The genesis of BJP itself is from the split of Janata Party in 1980. The party’s constituents – Jana Sangh, Congress (O), Socialist Party and Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD), went their separate ways after the poll drubbing in 1980. Refusing to make changes in the Jana Sangh’s ideological parent – The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Jana Sangh was refashioned as the Bharatiya Janata Party on April 6, 1980 with Atal Bihari Vajpayee being its first president.

Shankersinh Vaghela (1996)

After BJP sucessfully wrested away Gujarat from Congress in 1995, senior BJP leader Shankersinh Vaghela rebelled against BJP’s CM pick Keshubhai Patel. With many MLAs backing Mr. Vaghela as CM, Mr. Patel was replaced by Mr. Suresh Mehta as CM in October 1995. However, the rift in the BJP continued and Mr. Vaghela rebelled once again in September 1996, flying 105 of the 121 BJP MLAs to a resort in Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh’s Khajuraho. The Suresh Mehta government was soon dismissed and President’s Rule was imposed in Gujarat. 

Wresting away 47 MLAs from BJP, Mr. Vaghela formed his own party Rashtriya Janata Party which had the support of the Congress. He was sworn in as Gujarat’s twelfth CM but lasted only a year. Choosing not to contest the 1998 Gujarat state polls, he promptly merged his outfit with the Congress after the BJP regained power. After almost a decade in the Congress, Mr. Vaghela rebelled and cross-voted against Congress veteran Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha polls in 2017. He later quit the party and founded a new party named Jan Vikalp Morcha, but was not recognised as an official political party by Election Commission.

After a brief stint in the Nationalist Congress Party, he launched another outfit named Praja Shakti Democratic Party to contest the 2022 Gujarat elections. However, he later bowed out and chose to back Congress instead.

Kalyan Singh (1999)

Overseeing the demolition of the Babri Masjid during his tenure as CM, Kalyan Singh was seen as BJP’s leader who would fructify its dream to build a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. However, after a hung verdict in the 1997 Uttar Pradesh elections, Mr. Singh was forced to share power with BSP chief Mayawati, irking factions with the BJP. When the BJP-BSP coalition hit choppy waters between 1998 and 1999, Mr. Singh faced internal revolt from upper-caste BJP MLAs forcing the BJP Central leadership to replace Mr. Singh with Ram Prakash Gupta as CM. 

Miffed at his ouster, Mr. Singh began vocally critiquing then-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He alleged that the BJP had given up the issues it stood for and had been “Congres-sised“ under Mr. Vajpayee, leading to his expulsion in December 1999. Within days, he floated his own outfit ‘Rashtriya Kranti party’ based on the ideology of Hindutva. His party won four seats in the 2002 polls and sat in Opposition with Samajwadi Party (SP). After the BJP-BSP government fell in 2003, Mr. Singh allied with SP with his son Rajveer Singh joining his long-time nemesis Mulayam Singh Yadav’s cabinet. He jumped ship back to the BJP in 2004 and merged his outfit with the BJP. 

In January 2009, Mr. Singh once again quit BJP citing ‘humiliation at the hands of party brass’ and the party countered that it was Mr. Singh’s ‘ideologically opposite’ alliance with SP which drove a wedge. In November 2009, Mr. Yadav blamed SP’s alliance with Mr. Singh for its loss in the Firozabad Lok Sabha by-election. A miffed Mr. Singh quit the alliance, launched another outfit ‘Jan Kranti Party’ and appointed his son as its president. However, the outfit was disbanded and merged with the BJP in 2013 as the party ramped up its campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The ex-UP CM rejoined the saffron party in March 2014 at a grand Modi rally in Lucknow and was subsequently appointed as Governor of Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

Uma Bharti (2005)

Known as the ‘fiery sanyasin of Khajuraho’, BJP’s Madhya Pradesh stalwart Uma Bharti first expressed wish to quit the party in 1992 amid infighting in the party’s state unit. While then-BJP chief L.K. Advani managed to mollify the ‘heroine of Ram Janmabhoomi movement’ to remain in the saffron folds, Ms. Bharti resigned from her Lok Sabha and the party post in 2000 after being stiffed for a Union cabinet berth. Four years later, she once again ‘quit politics’ after she was forced to step down as Madhya Pradesh CM due to a non-bailable warrant issued against her in connection with the 1994 Hubli riots.

As she became a vocal critic of her successor in MP – CM Babulal Gaur, she was sacked in November 2004 by Mr. Advani but was re-inducted as BJP’s general secretary a month later at the instance of RSS top brass. Inspite of her inclusion in BJP, Ms. Bharti was not reinstated as CM and continued to rail against Mr. Gaur’s successor – Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Her antics led to her expulsion from BJP and founding of the Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJSP). 

Claiming to have the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s support, Ms. Bharti’s outfit failed to reap any political dividends as Mr. Chouhan retained the state winning 143 out of the 230 seats in the 2008 state polls. On the other hand, BJSP won only five seats and Ms. Bharti began warming towards rejoining BJP. After she was formally inducted back in BJP on June 7, 2011, the BJSP merged with the BJP later that month. Since then, she has expressed regret for quitting the BJP and has held several portfolios in the Modi cabinet. She is currently one of the party’s vice presidents.

Keshubhai Patel (2012)

Miffed at his protegee Narendra Modi’s rising stature in Gujarat, former CM Keshubhai Patel quit the BJP to form the Gujarat Parivartan party. Opposing Mr. Modi’s bid to seek a fourth term as CM in 2012, Mr. Patel had alleged that BJP had moved away from its principles towards personal glorification. After his party failed to open its account in the 2013 State polls, he rejoined the BJP in 2014 as Mr. Modi moved to Central leadership. Till his death in 2020, Mr. Patel remained in the BJP but quit active politics.

B.S. Yediyurappa (2012)

Indicted of illegal transaction with mining companies by Lokayukta, BJP’s tallest Lingayat leader in Karnataka – B.S. Yediyurappa was forced to step down as Chief Minister on July 27, 2011 after pressure from BJP’s central leadership. After his resignation, Mr. Yediyurappa quit the BJP to form his own party Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP). In the 2013 state polls, the KJP ate into the BJP’s Lingayat votebank, winning six seats and restricting the saffron party to 40.

A thaw between Mr. Yediyurappa and BJP’s central leadership appeared in September 2013 as Mr. Modi emerged as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial pick. As BJP ramped up its Lok Sabha campaign, Mr. Yediyurappa disbanded KJP in January 2014 and return to the saffron party’s fold. Since then, he has been elected as CM twice and has been elevated to the BJP’s Central Parliamentary board.

Yashwant Sinha (2018)

A Vajpayee veteran and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha first resigned from party posts in June 2009 after the BJP failed to stop the UPA government from getting re-elected. Taking responsibility for poll-drubbing, he resigned as BJP’s vice-president and member of the national executive committee and urged all party workers to resign from their posts so that there could be ‘transparent, internal elections to these posts’. However, he remained a BJP worker.

Almost a decade later, Mr. Sinha quit from the BJP in 2018 after being sidelined by the BJP under Modi-Shah. Accusing the Modi government of undermining democratic institutions, Mr. Sinha vowed to launch a nationwide campaign to “save democracy”. 

Ahead of the Bihar elections, Mr. Sinha along with Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) leader Arun Kumar founded the Bhartiya Sab Log Party (BSLP). The outfit contested on 30 seats and failed to open its account. BSLP later merged with the Chirag Paswan-led Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) [LJP(RV)] in 2022.

Opposing the BJP, Mr. Sinha joined Trinamool Congress (TMC) in 2021 as the saffron party canvassed for the West Bengal elections. He was jointly chosen as the Opposition’s candidate for the 2022 Presidential elections, but lost to Droupadi Murmu by a margin of 2,96,626 votes. After his electoral loss, he quit TMC to launch the ‘Atal Vichar Manch’ ahead of the 2024 Jharkhand elections. The party is yet to contest any elections.