Dissenting BSP group joins Congress

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 17

A dissenting group of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which had been calling the recent alliance of the party with the Shiromani Akali Dal as one-sided for the benefit of the latter, today joined the Congress.

Among those who joined the Congress today was BSP’s former state general secretary Sukhwinder Singh Kotli. He had contested Vidhan Sabha election on the party ticket from Adampur Assembly segment in 2012 and had polled 25,263 votes. He was also the BSP’s 2014 Lok Sabha candidate from Jalandhar in which he got 47,000 votes. He has also been a sarpanch of Kotli Than Singh village.

Highlights

• The rally saw a good presence of party workers and supporters
• There was huge traffic jam on the way to the rally site on Nakodar Road
• The rally was held in biting cold with many draped in shawls, long coats and mufflers

Along with Kotli, two prominent leaders of the party — Amritpal Bhonsle and Ram Saroop Saroye — also joined the Congress. Both hail from Phillaur and had been expelled as they had been demanding that Phillaur reserved seat should have come in the BSP quota.

These leaders joined the Congress in the presence of state leadership, including Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, AICC Punjab in charge Harish Chaudhary, Congress campaign committee chairman Sunil Jakhar and minister Pargat Singh.

AICC secy meets Chabbewal party workers

Hoshiarpur: Chetan Chauhan, secretary, All-India Congress Committee and co-in charge of Punjab, visited the Chabbewal area here on Friday. On the occasion, a large number of Congress workers attended the meeting held at the Congress office in Chabbewal. The problems of workers and the organisation were heard and discussed how to solve them. While apprising the workers of the policies and ideology of the party, Chetan Chauhan said shared the work performance and achievements of the Punjab Government. He mobilised the party workers present in support of MLA Dr Raj Kumar. The party workers said they had given the assembly segment’s representation in the hands of Dr Raj Kumar. Addressing the workers, Chetan Chauhan called Modi a great liar and said the farmers of Punjab had forced him to bow to them. He asked everyone to avoid false slogans of Kejriwal. Kejriwal, despite being the Chief Minister of Delhi, could not give anything to women there and how come he would be able to give monthly allowance to the women of Punjab. In the meeting, Dr Raj Kumar appealed to the party workers that now was the time to go ahead and take others along with them. He thanked Chetan Chauhan and everyone who attended the meeting. Jatinder Kumar, Daljit Singh Sahota, Zila Parishad members, committee members, panches, sarpanches and other Congress office-bearers were present. OC