Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov 8: Several Congress leaders joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday, just days before the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.
With four days to the election, a total of 26 senior members of the grand old party of the Congress defected and joined the governing BJP. With less than a week till voting, this comes as a huge shock to the Congress party.
In the presence of Chief Minister Jairam Thakur and the BJP’s Sudhan Singh, who was in charge of BJP state elections, the Congress leaders abandoned ship. Sanjay Sood, a BJP candidate from Shimla, was also present.
Former Congress general secretary Dharampal Thakur, former secretary Akash Saini, ex-councillor Rajan Thakur, ex-district vice president Amit Mehta, Mehr Singh Kanwar, Youth Congress president Rahul Negi, ex-president of the Jai Maa Shakti Social Sansthan Joginder Thakur, ex-president of the taxi union Naresh Verma, ex-president of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage Shimla.
Along with these leaders, other individuals who changed their allegiances include Chaman Lal, Devendra Singh, Mahendra Singh, Munish Mandla, who served as the former general secretary of the Youth Congress, Balkrishna Bobby, Sunil Sharma, Surendra Thakur, Sandeep Samta, and Ravi, according to ANI.
Himachal Pradesh will go to the polls on Nov 12 and the counting of votes will take place on December 8.
