New Delhi/Patna: Noted journalist and author M J Akbar and former bureaucrat N K Singh yesterday joined the BJP, the latter inviting scorn from the Janata Dal-United which he quit.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh welcomed Akbar and N K Singh, a former revenue secretary, into the party at two separate events. N K Singh was known for long as a loyalist of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and was widely credited with building brand Nitish.
“Social activists, retired military officers and actors have become members of the party,” Rajnath Singh said. “Today, veteran journalist M J Akbar joined the BJP.” This will be Akbar’s second innings in politics.
Akbar, who rose to fame after editing the now extinct Sunday weekly magazine from 1976, later presided over The Asian Age and now edits The Sunday Guardian, a weekly newspaper. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989 from Kishanganj in Bihar on Congress ticket. He lost in 1991.
After joining the BJP at Rajnath Singh’s residence, N K Singh said that Bihar’s JD-U government was worried over its survival and that development had been hit after the JD-U dumped the BJP.
The BJP, meanwhile, fielded actor Paresh Rawal as party candidate from Ahmedabad East Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat, instead of sitting MP Harin Pathak. The central election committee announced five names for Gujarat including Prabhatsinh Pratapsinh Chauhan, sitting MP from Panchmahal. IANS
