Four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aspirants joined Janata Dal-United in Manipur late Sunday after being excluded in the list of BJP candidates for the ensuing Manipur Assembly election.
The candidates are Th Arunkumar of Wangkhei assembly constituency; Nganbam Robert of Singjamei assembly constituency, Kh Suresh of Uripok assembly constituency and Th Brinda of Yaiskul assembly constituency. They tendered their resignation from the membership of BJP and joined the JD-U.
In the BJP’s candidate list announced on Sunday, CAF and PD Minister Th Satyabrata was named as BJP’s candidate for Yaiskul, former minister O Henry for Wangkhei, speaker Y Khemchand for Singjamei, retired civil servant Kh Raghumani for Uripok.
In the last two-three days, three prominent politicians, namely Kh Joykisan, Dwijamani Singh and Md Abdul Nasir who defected from their parent parties joined JD-U. MLA of Jiribam also joined the JD-U after tendering his resignation from the MLA seat.
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Entry of influential politicians to the JD-U is a big plus point to the party. It clearly shows that the party is gaining public trust, said an official of JD-U in a telephonic conservation.
Recently in a press meet, JD-U secretary general M Dorendro Singh had informed that a few MLAs are likely to join the party in next few days.
Concerning the delay in announcement of the candidates of JD-U, he said that with the joining of new intending candidates to the party, the process of scrutiny is still undergoing. There will be no phase-wise announcement of candidates for the party, it will be announced at one time, he added.
When NPP national vice-president Y Joykumar openly announced to give an opportunity to those intending candidates who may face rejection from the BJP, several questions arose from the public for choosing JD-U over NPP.
The Imphal Free Press attempted to contact the intending candidates but were unable to reach them.
