Former Punjab speaker Charanjit Atwal joins BJP

Former speaker of the Punjab assembly and deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha Charanjit Singh Atwal joined the BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party president JP Nadda on Friday

Jalandhar

BJP National President JP Nadda with former Punjab Assembly speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal as the latter joins BJP, at his residence in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)

Former speaker of the Punjab assembly and deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha Charanjit Singh Atwal joined the BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party president JP Nadda on Friday.

Atwal (86), who recently resigned from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) after the BJP gave ticket to his son Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal for the May 10 Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll, was the deputy speaker of Lok Sabha from 2004-2009.

Inder Iqbal was also with the SAD before he joined the BJP last month. The Atwals belong to the Scheduled Caste community, which has a large presence in Punjab, particularly in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha segment.

Atwal, who was once a close aide of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, said he quit the SAD on moral grounds after his son and other family members joined the BJP.

The veteran leader became an MLA for the first time in 1977 and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1985, 1997 and 2004. In 2012, he again contested the state assembly elections successfully and was appointed as the speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.

Atwal unsuccessfully contested 2019 Lok Sabha polls as the SAD-BJP candidate. He lost to Congress’ Santokh Chaudhary by 19,491 votes.