Banihal (J-K), Dec 24: The PDP Monday suffered another setback when its senior leader and former bureaucrat Bashir Ahmad Runyal announced his decision to quit the party.


Runyal, a former IAS officer who was Ramban district president 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. 

After the fall of the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government in June, the PDP faced a revolt within the party which led many of its leaders, including former ministers and legislators, quitting the party.

Prominent among those who left the party included former ministers Haseeb Drabu, Imran Reza Ansari and Syed Basharat Bukhari and former MLAs Abid Hussain Ansari and Mohammad Abbass Wani.

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Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka DGP (Prisons) Alok Kumar on Friday said search operations against contraband inside prisons across the state have been intensified, leading to a number of seizures.

In the last 36 hours, mobile phones and SIM cards have been recovered following search operations inside prisons, including Kalaburagi, Mangaluru and Shivamogga.

"Our search operations against contraband items inside the prison premises continues all across the state. In the last 36 hours, 10 mobile phones, four SIM cards at Kalaburagi, six phones at Mangaluru, four phones at Ballari, three phones and four SIM cards seized at Shivamogga prisons. This drive will continue," he said in a post on 'X'.

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He further said that in the largest haul in the history of Parappana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, 30 mobile phones were seized in a late Thursday night operation.

"Appreciate the good work done by SP Anshu Kumar and Jailer Shivakumar, who led the search team. 30K reward for the search team," he added.

The 1994-batch IPS officer, Kumar, was promoted to the rank of Director General of Police and posted as DGP, Prisons and Correctional Services recently.

Ever since he has taken over as DGP Prisons, Kumar has intensified search operations against contraband items inside prisons across the state and made several seizures, including narcotics substances, knives and other items.