Lal Singh’s party fails to make presence felt in Lok Sabha poll

Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 24

Expelled BJP candidate Chowdhary Lal Singh, who had formed a new political outfit in the Jammu region, has failed to make his presence felt in the Lok Sabha elections.

Lal Singh had contested from both parliamentary seats of the Jammu province, under his newly formed party Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan Party (DSSP), but failed to get respectable number of votes.

It was earlier observed that the ex-minister in the previous PDP-BJP government would spoil the BJP’s chances of retaining both Lok Sabha seats because Singh had been conducting massive rallies in the Jammu region, particularly in Kathua district.

But he got only 18,470 votes in the Udhampur parliamentary constituency and 6,849 votes from the Jammu seat, which is 1.58 and 0.47 per cent of the total vote share of the constituency, respectively.

Lal Singh had been a Cabinet minister in Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP government in the state, but was forced to resign after the infamous Rasaana rape and murder case after he had shared the stage with people of Rasaana village who were demanding a CBI probe in the case.

Annoyed with the BJP, Lal Singh formed his own political party in the name of the Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan for which the BJP had ousted him from the party a day after the visit of the national party president Amit Shah on April 3 this year.