Lagatar24 Desk
Jammu, Oct.19: Prem Sagar Aziz, a former Jammu and Kashmir minister, left the National Conference (NC) on Tuesday and backed Devender Singh Rana, a former party colleague who recently joined BJP.
Aziz, who was the National Conference’s Bani Assembly constituency in-charge, announced that he and his followers are quitting from the party’s primary membership.
“I was in the Congress for 45 years and joined the National Conference only because of Rana. As I know that he is working for the cause of Jammu, I support his cause unequivocally.
“Now that Rana has dissociated himself from the National Conference for the sake of Jammu, I cannot continue in the party and extend my support to Rana,” he said in a statement.
Rana, the younger brother of Union minister Jitendra Singh, and senior party colleague and former minister S S Slathia also left the National Conference on October 10. The next day, they both joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi.
Aziz stated that he will “stand like a rock behind Rana” since his contribution to the cause of Jammu has inspired him to work for the common good.
After quitting his position as political advisor to then-Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Rana became the National Conference’s provincial president in 2011.
