Two senior J&K leaders swap sides ahead of polls

Bharatiya Janata Party sitting MLA from Basohli joined the Congress and Congress state vice-president joined the BJP.

Nearly a fortnight ahead of the first phase of assembly elections in Jammu Kashmir, two senior leaders of Congrss and the Bharatiya Janata Party along with their supporters on Sunday changed sides.

While Bharatiya Janata Party sitting MLA from Basohli, Jagdish Raj Sapolia, returned to Congress, the latter’s state vice-president Thakur Puran Singh joined the former. Sapolia was denied ticket by BJP as it suspected that he along with its six other legislators had cross voted for Congress-National Conference nominees during the 2011 Legislative Council polls.

Significantly, Sapolia was first time elected to the Legislative Assembly as a Congress nominee from Basohli in 1987. Later in 1999, he left the party and joined BJP citing “personal reasons”. During the 2008 assembly elections, he got elected from Basohli as a BJP nominee.

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Fifteen years later, he returned to Congress citing “personal reasons” for quitting the BJP.

Thakur Puran Singh was first time elected to the Legislative Assembly from Darhal as an independent during the 2002 elections and was subsequently inducted as minister of state into the Mufti Sayeed led coalition government. Later, he joined Congress and unsuccessfully contested the 2008 assembly polls from the same constituency.

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