Lal Singh to join Bharat Jodo Yatra: Kathua Case lawyer Deepika Pushkar quits Congress
Deepika resigned as the person responsible for sabotaging the Kathua rape case in 2018, Lal Singh to join Bharat Jodo Yatra
Deepika Pushkar Nath, the spokesperson for the Jammu and Kashmir Congress, resigned from the party on Tuesday, citing the party’s choice to “let” former minister Lal Singh participate in the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra that will enter the Union territory J&K later this week. Before starting his political party, Lal Singh had resigned from Congress and joined the BJP. In 2018, he led a rally in favour of the culprits of the Kathua rape case. Lal Singh was responsible for sabotaging the Kathua rape case in 2018 by brazenly defending the rapists.
Nath tweeted. “On ideological grounds, I cannot share the party platform with such a person.”
Nath was the lawyer of the family of the rape victim during the initial period of the case.
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In view of Ch.Lal Singh's proposal of joining @bharatjodo & @INCJammuKashmir allowing the same, I am left with no other option but to resign from @INCIndia
Lal Singh was responsible in sabotaging the Kathua rape case in 2018 by brazenly defending rapists.— Deepika Pushkar Nath (@DeepikaSRajawat) January 17, 2023
Both ministers were forced to quit the Cabinet as a result of the backlash from the public over their apparent support for murderers and rapists.
Omar Abdullah, a former chief Minister and Vice President of the National Conference, has pleaded with the Congress party to forbid Singh from taking part in the Yatra in J&K.
“… some people might try to use the Yatra to whitewash their past. We have not forgotten the role played by those leaders who tried to save the rapist,” Omar told media persons in Srinagar Wednesday.
Mehbooba Mufti, the former chief minister and president of the PDP, tweeted on Thursday, that she backed the cause, for which Rahul was walking along with the thousands, “to stitch back the fabric of the country”. “It doesn’t matter to me who is joining him, what matters is the motive,” she said, adding that she will be a part of the Yatra.
On a Congress (Tiwari) ticket, Lal Singh, 63, first won an election as an MLA from Basohli in the Kathua district in 1986. Lal Singh began his political career as a student activist. He was appointed the Minister of Health and Medical Education in a PDP-Congress coalition government in 2002 after winning the same seat as a Congress nominee in that year’s election.
Later, Lal Singh relocated to the Lok Sabha and represented Udhampur, winning in 2004 and 2009. He joined the BJP in August 2014 when Congress refused to give him a ticket.
A group of Gujjars and farmers filed a complaint to the police in May 2016 against Lal Singh, the region’s then-Forest Minister, for allegedly bringing up the memory of 1947 murder of Muslims in the area to threaten them. The farmers had approached him to get a map that would allow them to move trees that had fallen on their property reinstated.
Lal Singh allegedly threatened Kashmiri journalists in June 2018 by saying they should “draw a line in their journalism” and cited the killing of a Rising Kashmir editor in Srinagar.
