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Apni Party vice president Choudhary Zulfikar Ali joins BJP bandwagon
After a hiatus of nearly a decade, Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled to go to assembly elections in three phases--September 18, 25 and October 1. Results will be declared on October 4
Ahead of much-awaited Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections, the vice-president of Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party and former minister Choudhary Zulfikar Ali joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) propelling poll prospects of the saffron party.
After a hiatus of nearly a decade, Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled to go to assembly elections in three phases--September 18, 25 and October 1. Results will be declared on October 4.
The former minister and prominent Gujjar leader from Rajouri-Poonch Choudhary Zulfikar Ali joined the BJP at party headquarters here in the presence of Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh, BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh and J&K BJP president Ravinder Raina, said a party spokesperson.
Ali, a former minister and once a close confidante of PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, had switched over to Apni Party in 2020. He was one of the founding members of the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party.
On Friday, he posted a picture of himself with Union home minister Amit Shah on ‘X’. Later in the evening, the BJP officially announced that Zulfikar is going to join the party on Sunday.
An advocate by profession, Ali previously represented the Darhal assembly constituency in Rajouri district, winning on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ticket in both the 2008 and 2014 Assembly elections.
He served as a cabinet minister in the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government from 2015 until 2018.
The coalition government collapsed in June 2018 after the BJP withdrew its support over worsening security scenario. Following this, many PDP leaders, led by former minister Altaf Bukhari, formed Apni Party in 2020, with Ali being one of its founding members.
With Ali switching over to BJP, the political scale is likely to tilt in favour of the BJP in Rajouri and Poonch districts, which have a sizeable population of Gujjars.
BJP chief Ravinder Raina said, “Zulfikar Ali is a very big political leader of J&K. We welcome him in the BJP and with his joining the BJP will get strengthened.”
Chaudhary Zulfikar Ali, in his speech said, “The policies and schemes of the BJP have reached even the last person in the queue. These things compelled me to join the BJP. Every person received the ‘sehat card’ which the people of my area refer to as the ‘Modi card’... Peace has been restored in J&K, stone pelting has ended, the common man feels more secure, and the tourism industry has grown.”
