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Journalism of Courage
BJP MLA and four-time MP Avtar Singh Bhadana on Wednesday joined the Samajwadi Party’s ally RLD in the presence of its party president Jayant Chaudhary.
Chaudhary tweeted photographs of the meeting with the MLA from Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar district, and captioned the photographs, “Ex MP & senior leader Shri Avtar Singh Bhadana ji joined RLD today!”
Bhadana, a 64-year-old Gurjar leader, won the Meerapur seat in 2017 by defeating the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Liyakat Ali by just 193 votes. He had joined the BJP in 2016 after stints with the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal.
Bhadana was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999 from Meerut on a Congress ticket. In the subsequent two parliamentary elections, he was elected from Faridabad in Haryana.
He is considered to be an influential leader among the Gurjars in west UP and his switch is not surprising as he actively backed the farmers’ agitation in west UP against three central farm laws that were ultimately repealed late last year. The region will go to the polls in the first phase on February 10.
Senior RLD leaders said that with the BJP facing the heat in west UP, Bhadana’s departure would be a “big loss for the BJP and a huge gain for the SP and its allies in western UP”.
