PDP district president Leh Tashi Gyalson, several leaders joins BJP in Ladakh

Several PDP leaders, including party's district president Leh Tashi Gyalson, have joined the BJP, a spokesperson of the saffron party said here on Wednesday. Almost the entire Leh unit of the PDP led by Gyalson joined the BJP at the party headquarters on Tuesday evening, he said.

Chairman and chief executive councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) and BJP's candidate for the Ladakh parliamentary constituency Jamyang Tsering Namgyal welcomed the new entrants into the party fold. Besides Gyalson, others who have joined the BJP include women wing president and nominated councillor Rinchen Lhamo, vice president Tsewang Dorjay Onpo, zonal president Nubra Capt Phunstog, general secretary Sangay Dorjay and executive members Tundup and Phuntsog, the spokesman said.

Gyalson, who joined the PDP in 2008, said they were highly impressed by the BJP slogan 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' and decided to join the party. The spokesman said their joining will strengthen the party at the grassroots level in the region which is going to polls in the final phase of the Lok Sabha polls on May 6.

Veteran leader Thupstan Chhewang had won the seat for the BJP for the first time in 2014 by a slight margin of 36 votes, but he resigned from the primary membership of the party in November last year, saying that all promises made by the BJP sounded like "empty rhetoric".

(With inputs from agencies.)