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Buta Singh rejoins Congress, blasts BJP

Former Union minister Buta Singh, who won the last Lok Sabha election as an independent from Jalore in Rajasthan and joined the Atal Bihari Vajpayee coalition government for a brief period, today rejoined the Congress in Jaipur.

Briefing the press, Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Girija Vyas said Singh flew down to Jaipur to rejoin the Congress.

Vyas announced that former Rajasthan minister Neelima Sharma had also joined the Congress. But Sharma was not present at the time of the announcement.

Replying to questions, Buta Singh said leaving the Congress and joining the Vajpayee government was a "mistake" that he would now not commit even if he is not given a ticket for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election.

Singh said he joined the Vajpayee Cabinet in the interests of the country as it would have been very hard on the people to suffer another Lok Sabha election in a matter of months.

But when he "realised" that he had committed a "political mistake", he resigned from the government and joined the "secular" forces, he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party was a communal party then and it remains so today, he said.

UNI

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