Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh joined the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) today. For this, Singh met with BJP chief JP Nadda before officially announcing his merger. The media reports also suggest that the newly formed party of Singh, Punjab Lok Congress (PLC), with the BJP, will also merge into the BJP.
Singh left the Congress last year and announced plans to form a PLC. The PLC had also contested the elections with the support of the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyuk) led by Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.
Pritpal Singh Baliawal, the spokeperson for the Punjab Lok Congress, had previously been informed about Singh's decision to join the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders in Delhi on September 19. Singh had contested the Punjab assembly elections in 2022 with the BJP, but his party could not win a single seat.
The former Punjab chief minister recently met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah after he returned from London following spinal surgery on September 12, Singh had said that there was a very productive discussion on various issues related to national security, rising cases of narco-terrorism in Punjab and the future roadmap for the state's overall holistic development.
The two-time former chief minister is the scion of the erstwhile Patiala royal family. He is one of the most influential political leaders in Punjab and was elected the chief minister of Punjab twice in his political career.
Amarinder, a former Congress veteran, left the grand old party in November of last year, one and a half months after the Congress leadership replaced him as the chief minister with Charanjit Singh Channi following his prolonged dispute with the state party's then-leader Navjot Singh Sidhu.
