Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections: BJP leader resigns over denial of tickets

Jammu and Kashmir: Kashmira Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) district chief in Samba, resigned from all party positions.

Kashmira Singh, who held a key role in the region, stepped down in protest against the party's candidate selection for the upcoming assembly elections in the union territory.

"I am resigning from all the posts and membership of BJP. I have been associated with BJP for the last 40-42 years. I have been constantly working for the people here. I have worked hard for the progress of the BJP...And today, I am saddened as we were not even considered for once while giving the tickets...The party workers do the work, and then tickets are given to outsider candidates...Those who opposed our thoughts are becoming our candidates today. I cannot take this, so I am resigning from BJP," he said.

Singh expressed his dissatisfaction with the party's decision to field Surjit Singh Slathia as the BJP candidate from Samba. Slathia, a former minister in the state government, had previously been a member of the National Conference (NC) before joining the BJP. In his resignation letter addressed to the party's state president, Ravinder Rana, Singh stated that he was "disillusioned" with the BJP's choice.

He revealed that he had spent years opposing Slathia in his political career and was unhappy about the prospect of campaigning for him. He voiced his frustration, claiming that loyal party members were being overlooked in favor of recent recruits. "The party valued me only when work was needed, but when it came to distributing tickets, they brought in someone from outside," Singh wrote in his letter. He added that he would have accepted any loyal party worker as the candidate.

The upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections will be held in three phases on September 18, 25, and October 1. The assembly has a total of 90 seats, with seven reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and nine for Scheduled Tribes (ST).