Congress Likely to Enlist Lal Singh to Contest Against Jitendra Singh
However, a senior Congress leader, who declined to be named, said, “Nothing has been decided yet, but discussions are on at the screening meeting. Though JKPCC president Vikar Rasool Wani has strongly pitched for Choudhary Lal Singh before the party high command, including Rahul Gandhi, the final call will be taken by the Congress working committee.”
Despite embroiled in a money laundering case being probed by the Enforcement Directorate, the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) is mulling to rope in and field former minister and chairman of the Dogra Swabhimaan Sangthan Choudhary Lal Singh against Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh from Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency on a Congress ticket.
Speculations were rife that the fiery politician may join the grand old party anytime soon.
However, a senior Congress leader, who declined to be named, said, “Nothing has been decided yet, but discussions are on at the screening meeting. Though JKPCC president Vikar Rasool Wani has strongly pitched for Choudhary Lal Singh before the party high command, including Rahul Gandhi, the final call will be taken by the Congress working committee.”
On March 3, the BJP in its first list of 195 candidates, had announced Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh and sitting MP Jugal Kishore Sharma for Udhampur and Jammu parliamentary seats, respectively.
Dr Singh and Jugal Kishore Sharma have been fielded for the third successive elections since 2014.
“The JKPCC chief has been strongly advocating the candidature of Choudhary Lal Singh for Udhampur seat and former minister Raman Bhalla for Jammu seat,” said the Congress leader.
Choudhary Lal Singh quit the Congress in 2014 after the party high command fielded Ghulam Nabi Azad from Udhampur seat, which the latter had lost to Dr Jitendra Singh of the BJP amid massive “Modi wave”.
Dr Singh got 4,87,369 votes as compared to Azad’s 4,26,393 votes.
Congress sources confided to HT that amid a surging Modi wave, the JKPCC chief saw Choudhary Lal Singh as the only leader, who can upset the BJP’s applecart in Udhampur, a predominantly Rajput belt.
It may be stated here that the two-time MP from Udhampur and the three-time MLA from Basohli, Choudhary Lal Singh was arrested by the ED in November last year in a money laundering case against an educational trust — RB Educational Trust, being run by his wife Kanta Andotra.
In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Lal Singh defeated the then Union minister and BJP veteran Prof Chaman Lal Gupta on Udhampur seat.
Last time, he was elected an MLA during the 2014 assembly elections as a BJP nominee after he had quit the Congress and joined the saffron brigade. He was later inducted as a cabinet minister in the PDP-BJP coalition government.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the fiery leader had contested from Jammu and Udhampur constituencies but faced defeat in both the constituencies.
He remained a minister in the last PDP-BJP combine, which collapsed in June 2018 after the latter pulled out of the combine citing worsening security scenario in the region.
Before the unceremonious fall of the combine, Choudhary Lal Singh had resigned from the BJP following an outcry over his presence in a rally in support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Kathua’s Rasana in January 2018.
