Nationalist Congress Party dissident P A Sangma has come out in support of Congress leader and Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson Najma Heptullah, who recently criticised party president Sonia Gandhi.

He said Congress leader Kapil Sibal was uncharitable in calling Heptullah a "migratory crane".

"Najma is a highly respected leader not only in our country, but also abroad, because she was the first Indian to be elected as president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union," he said in New Delhi. "She is the longest serving deputy chairperson of the Upper House. And if she said that she had been humiliated [by Gandhi], it must have been quite a bit of humiliation, otherwise she would not have come out and spoken in such terms as she did with the media," Sangma said.

"How can the Congress talk about Najma Heptullah as a migratory bird when its own leader has migrated to India on a permanent basis," he said, referring to Gandhi's Italian origin. "… it is Sonia Gandhi who is a migratory bird."

He claimed that the Lok Sabha polls would decide once and for all whether a foreigner could ever become India's prime minister. "The people of India are going to reject the Congress party and settle this issue once for all."

He ridiculed the Congress for allowing former Chhattisgarh chief minister to canvas for the party in the northeast. "He will have a big entertaining value to the tribals in the northeast."

Sangma said his meetings with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani were routine, and had nothing to do with the rumours that he was going to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.