Lucknow:
Former Home Minister and one-time senior Congress leader Buta Singh will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket from Jalore constituency in Rajasthan.
In a statement in Lucknow today, SP national General Secretary and spokesperson Ram Gopal Yadav said that Singh would be the party's authorised candidate for Jalore.
Mr Singh, who also served as the Union Agriculture Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet at the Centre between 1984 and 1986, was elected to Lok Sabha eight times between 1962 and 2004. He was Home Minister between 1986 and 1989.
Hailing from Jalandhar in Punjab, Mr Singh was also the Governor of Bihar from 2004 to 2006 and a former chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes between 2007 and 2010.