Expelled Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLA Dharmjeet Singh joins BJP

Aug 14, 2023 01:14 PM IST

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Singh, a four-term member of the legislative assembly (MLA) representing the Lormi assembly seat, holds significant influence and popularity within Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur division

Dharmjeet Singh, a legislator who was expelled from the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) last year, has formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Raipur.

Elections are due in Chhattisgarh later this year. (Representative file image)

This development comes at a time when the state is due for assembly elections later this year.

Former Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer SSD Badgaiya also joined the BJP at a gathering held at the Kushabhau Thakre Parisar, the headquarters of the state BJP in Raipur.

Addressing the gathering at Raipur during Dharmjeet’s formal entry in the BJP, Arun Sao, the state party president welcomed both Singh and Badgaiya into the BJP, asserting that the party’s expanding reach is evidence of a wind of change in Chhattisgarh’s political landscape.

Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who is also the BJP’s joint in-charge for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, former chief minister Raman Singh, and several other senior party leaders were also in attendance.

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Sao claimed that the people of the state were fed up with the Congress’s misrule.,

“We all will work together to save Chhattisgarh”, he said.

Singh, a four-term member of the legislative assembly (MLA) representing the Lormi assembly seat, holds significant influence and popularity within Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur division.

He embarked on his political journey when he got elected on a Congress ticket from Lormi constituency in 1998.

Subsequently, he was elected MLA in the assembly polls of 2003 and 2008.

However, he faced defeat in the 2013 election at the hands of a BJP candidate.

Singh later broke off with the Congress and aligned himself with former chief minister Ajit Jogi, who founded the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) in 2016 after parting ways with the Congress.

In the 2018 assembly elections, Singh won the Lormi seat as a candidate of the JCC (J).

However, he was expelled from the JCC (J) in September last year after the party accused him of disregarding the interests of marginalised communities such as the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), and Other Backward Class (OBC).