Srinagar, Oct 08 (KINS): Veteran Congress leader Choudhary Lal Singh experienced another electoral defeat on Tuesday, losing the Basholi seat to BJP’s Darshan Kumar in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district.
Singh garnered 15,840 votes, while Kumar, a 48-year-old businessman, received 31,874 votes, maintaining an early lead. Other candidates, including BSP’s Pankaj Kumar and PDP’s Yoginder Singh, only managed 368 votes each, losing their security deposits.
Kumar expressed gratitude to the electorate, stating, “We were confident about winning and contributing to the party’s majority. Voters supported our development agenda and peace. I humbly bow before them.”
This defeat adds to Lal Singh’s struggles, having lost three consecutive general elections to Union Minister Jitendra Singh in 2014, 2019, and 2024. A political figure since his student days, he first won the Basholi seat in 1996 and served as Health Minister in a Congress-PDP coalition before being elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 and 2009.
After leaving the BJP in 2018 following the Kathua rape case, he formed the Dogra Swabhimaan Sangathan to advocate for the Dogra community and rejoined Congress this year.(KINS)
Lal Singh faces another setback in Basholi Constituency
