Another PDP leader and former bureaucrat Bashir Ahmad Runyal quit the party on Monday.
Runyal, a former IAS officer who was the district president of Ramban and state secretary of the PDP, had joined the party prior to the 2014 assembly polls after his retirement and had unsuccessfully contested the elections from Banihal constituency.
“I have tendered my resignation from the basic membership of the party and I am fighting the upcoming assembly elections as an independent candidate,” he told reporters here.
Runyal was accompanied by BJP leader Showkat Javaid Daing who also announced his resignation from the basic membership of the saffron party.
“We have decided to join hands in the larger interest of the development of our area which was ignored by the previous PDP-BJP government,” he said.
Daing had also unsuccessfully contested the last assembly elections on BJP ticket from Banihal constituency which was won by Congress candidate Vikar Rasool Wani.
The BJP candidate had got over 10,000 votes. Runyal said personally he had nothing against the party leadership, but his decision to leave the PDP was under pressure from workers and the public who felt let down by the previous government.
Recently two senior leaders of the PDP Syed Basharat Bukhari and Peer Mohammad Hussain resigned from the Party and joined the National Conference. However the PDP, in a statement had said that they have expelled the two for indulging in ‘Anti-Party’ activities.
Earlier, PDP leader from Uri Raja Ajaz Ali Khan resigned from the party along with party workers. Khan said that all his workers including block presidents who were with PDP earleir have decided to quit from the party.
Recently, MLA Tangmarg, Abbas Wani resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Wani has sent a letter in this regard to PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti.
Moreover, PDP received a major setback when former finance minister Haseeb A Drabu and former MLA Zadibal, Abid Ansari left the party recently.
Announcing his resignation on Twitter, Ansari had said the PDP has failed the people on all fronts and ‘I don’t want to be part of lies and deception’.
Former Finance Minister Drabu, in his letter to the PDP chief wrote, “Even though I have not been a dissident — you are aware I had resigned from the cabinet, assembly and party nearly two years ago which you didn’t accept — I have disengaged from the party affairs for quite some time now.”
