Former PDP leader Mohammad Khalil Bandh joins NC

Former PDP leader and three-time MLA from Pulwama constituency in Jammu and Kashmir Mohammad Khalil Bandh on Sunday joined the National Conference.

He was welcomed into the party fold by NC president Farooq Abdullah, a spokesman of the party said.

Bandh, a founding member of the PDP, resigned from the party on Wednesday accusing its leadership of humiliating the old guard.

"The party has upended after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed sahab's demise (in January 2016), where old/elected/experienced lot was not only neglected but humiliated to the core and few men with parachute launching decided/dictated and shaped a disaster of where we stand today," he wrote in his resignation letter to PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti.

Bandh, who was elected to the state legislative assembly from Pulwama segment three times in a row in 2002, 2008 and 2014, was also Pulwama district president of the PDP.

He was the eighth legislator from the PDP to resign from the party after the PDP-BJP coalition government collapsed in June 2018.

Others who have left the party include Altaf Bukhari, Haseeb Drabu, Basharat Bukhari, Imran Ansari, Abid Ansari and Abbas Wani (all former MLAs).