extreme left: Pawan Beniwal

Tribune News Service
Hisar, April 20

BJP leader Pawan Beniwal, who contested two Assembly elections on the party ticket from the Ellanabad Assembly segment in Sirsa district, quit the BJP after meeting the protesting farmers at a dharna site in Sirsa district today.

Beniwal, who contested againsy INLD leader Abhay Chautala in 2014 and 2019, said he was feeling “suffocated” in the BJP for the past some months as the ruling party was not taking any interest in the development of the segment. Besides, his pleas with the party leadership to find an amicable resolution to the farmers’ issue too fell on deaf ears. “I find it difficult to stay in the party which is not ready to listen to the voice of the large number of farmers who are on agitational path in a democratic way for the last many months.”

Beniwal had left the INLD to join the BJP in 2014 when the party fielded him against Abhay Chautala.

Meanwhile, at a Congress event in Gurugram today, former minister Attar Singh Saini from the Hansi segment, former MLA Balwan Singh Daulatpuria from Fatehabad joined the Congress in the presence of the state Congress in charge Vivek Bansal and state Congress president Kumari Selja.

Surender Nehra, son of former minister Jagdish Nehra from Sirsa district, and a leader Bir Singh who had contested the Assembly poll from Rania on the BSP ticket too joined the Congress at the function.