New Delhi/Jammu: Former MP and minister Lal Singh rejoined the Congress in the presence of senior party leaders here on Wednesday.
He also announced the merger of his outfit, Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan Party (DSSP), with the Congress.
While Singh was the founder chairman of the DSSP, his wife Kanta Andotra (a former MLA) was its president.
Singh is a two-time former Member of Parliament from Udhampur. He has been the health minister and forest minister in Jammu and Kashmir. Singh represented Basohli in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.
While the Congress welcomed Singh’s return to its fold, which will give a boost to the party in Udhampur, several leaders, including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, questioned the grand old party for inducting Singh, who, he alleged, stood in support of the Kathua rape accused in the past.
Singh (65), who hails from Kathua district, rejoined the Congress at the party headquarters here amid the speculation that he will be fielded against Union minister Jitendra Singh from Udhampur in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Udhampur goes to polls on April 19.
Starting his political career as a student leader, Singh was elected as an MLA from the Basohli constituency in the 1996 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election. He was again re-elected as an MLA in 2002.
He was inducted into the Jammu and Kashmir cabinet as the minister for health and medical education when the Congress-PDP coalition was in power in the erstwhile state. After that he was elected as an MP in the 14th Lok Sabha from Udhampur in 2004. Singh was re-elected as an MP from the same constituency in the 15th Lok Sabha in 2009.
He parted ways with the Congress in August 2014 after being denied a Lok Sabha poll ticket and formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in presence of its then president, Amit Shah, in Kathua. Singh resigned as a cabinet minister in 2018, quit the BJP and subsequently, launched the DSSP following uproar over his participation in a rally in support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua in January 2018. However, he defended his participation in the rally stating that he was there to “defuse the situation”.
On November 7 last year, he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case against an educational trust run by his wife and former legislator Kanta Andotra. However, he was released on bail three weeks after his arrest.
The money laundering case stems from an October 2021 charge-sheet filed by the CBI in this case which alleged criminal connivance in the issuance of land between January 4 and January 7, 2011, without mentioning details in respect of violation of the ceiling limit of 100 standard kanal imposed under Section 14 of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, thereby giving undue pecuniary advantage to the trust.
Based on this, the trust acquired multiple pieces of land of about 329 kanal vide three gift deeds executed on January 5 and January 7, 2011, the CBI charge-sheet claimed.
Meanwhile, Congress workers celebrated the merger of the DSSP with their party here on Wednesday, expressing hope that his joining will boost the party’s prospects in the Udhampur parliamentary constituency of Jammu and Kashmir.
A group of Congress workers assembled at the Shaheedi Chowk party office here and chanted slogans to praise Singh’s decision to rejoin the party.
“We welcome the merger of DSSP with Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The return of Singh is a big boost for the party as he is a veteran leader with a clean image and secular outlook. He came forward voluntarily to support Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir,” state Congress working president Raman Bhalla said.
Reacting to Lal Singh joining the Congress, chief spokesperson of the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) Salman Nizami said the development was “utterly shameful for Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi”.
“…this betrays the core principles and ideology of Congress. It vindicates our decision to leave a party that harbours supporters of rapists. Shame on you, Congress!” Nizami wrote on X.
