SAD vice-president Raipur joins Cong

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, October 18

In a surprise move, SGPC member and SAD state vice-president Paramjit S Raipur joined the Congress in Phagwara today. He joined the party in the presence of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Cabinet minister Sunder Sham Arora, who reached the place for campaigning ahead of the Phagwara Assembly bypoll.

Raipur was annoyed with the SAD for ignoring his complaints against former SAD MLA Sarabjit Makkar over property disputes. Having unsuccessfully contested poll in 1997, he had been eyeing ticket to the Jalandhar Cantonment seat in 2012 and 2017 Assembly elections too. He had been much annoyed after the party chose Makkar as candidate from the Cantonment in 2017.

Raipur was also made the Jalandhar Improvement Trust (JIT) Chairman in the last fortnight in the previous SAD-BJP tenure for appeasement. His nephew Tanmanjeet Dhesi is a UK-based MP. Raipur and his brother Jaspal Dhesi had heavily funded the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) elections in the past.