Former BJP MP Pappu Singh joins Congress

Former BJP MP Uday Singh who resigned from BJP in January alleging that it has surrendered before the discredited JD(U) headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has joined the Congress party.

Patna: Former BJP MP Uday Singh, alias Pappu Singh joined Congress here Wednesday ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and said he did not understand why the saffron party "surrendered" to Nitish Kumar's JD(U) by agreeing to the allocation of 17 of the 40 parliamentary seats in Bihar.

Singh had resigned from BJP in January alleging that it has surrendered before the discredited JD(U) headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The Grand Alliance, of which Congress is a member is likely to announce its seat-sharing among its partners for 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state after Holi.

Singh, a former two-time Purnea MP, joined Congress along with his supporters at the party's headquarters here in the presence of Bihar PCC president Madan Mohan Jha and Bihar Congress Pradesh Campaign Committee chairman and MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh.

Asked to comment on the BJP leaving 17 out of the 40 seats in Bihar for its NDA partner the JD(U), which had won just two seats in 2014, he said it was "beyond" to fathom.

"I did not find any work done by Nitish Kumar after 2014 which would have increased his popularity. It is difficult for me and for thousands of other party workers as well to understand why the BJP surrendered before a party (JD-U) which won just two seats," he said.

Asked the reason for his quitting BJP, Singh said that the party has deviated from its principles and the character it has built over the years.

"It is treading a different path to serve a particular agenda and the party workers are not being heard," he said.

"It is my homecoming in Congress which I had left in 2004," he added.

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