Ahmedabad, July 10: A former Gujarat BJP lawmaker who had played an indirect part in Narendra Modi becoming chief minister and given Amit Shah his first political break has joined the Aam Aadmi Party.

Yatin Oza's defection is, however, not a huge embarrassment for the BJP, for the two-time MLA has been a long-time maverick and party-hopper and had been sidelined.

Oza, 57, met Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in Rajkot last evening and announced his switch of allegiance, threatening fresh revelations of scams and fake encounters by the erstwhile Modi government in Gujarat.

Kejriwal has been on a visit to Gujarat, where his party plans to contest all the 182 seats in next year's Assembly elections.

"I had dinner with Kejriwal yesterday. He has asked me to come to Delhi where I will explain to his team on Thursday how we should campaign in Gujarat," Oza, former president of the Gujarat Bar Association, told The Telegraph today.

He said he had been inspired by "Kejriwal's honest and transparent administration".

Oza had been a prominent lawyer in his mid-30s when he was elected MLA for the first time in March 1995, from the Sabarmati constituency in Ahmedabad.

He had appointed Shah, then just a councillor, as his election agent, giving the current BJP president his first chance to display his fabled poll management skills. With Oza's backing, Shah made his Assembly debut in 1997, winning a by-election.

Oza won from Sabarmati a second time in the March 1998 election, necessitated by Shankersinh Vaghela's revolt and walkout. But Oza soon fell out with chief minister Keshubhai Patel.

In July 1998, Oza had intervened when the police caned a protest against a school fee hike in his constituency. Oza alleged the police beat him up too but Keshubhai refused to punish the officers responsible.

Eventually, Oza resigned as MLA and joined the Congress in 2001, helping its candidate and former deputy chief minister Narhari Amin win the by-election that followed.

The loss of party stronghold Sabarmati became the last straw for Keshubhai's growing band of critics in the party, forcing the chief minister to make way for Modi.

In the 2002 elections, Oza took Modi on from Maninagar, decrying the BJP as "pseudo-Hindu", and lost. But disenchantment with the Congress followed when he was overlooked for the 2007 polls.

Oza returned to the BJP just before the 2012 elections, apparently on a promise of an election ticket, but was denied again. Since then he has been sulking.

"He was not an active BJP member and never visited the party office or attended any meeting," a party insider said.

"Oza is a very good speaker but a difficult person to deal with. He can become a headache for Kejriwal."

Some Aam Aadmi Party sources too grumbled that Oza was "highly unpredictable and unreliable".

Another former BJP lawmaker, Bhavnagar ex-MLA Kanu Kalsaria, now leads the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat.