Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi on Friday switched from the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party, reported PTI. Mehndi had joined the Opposition party in 2013. Union minister Vijay Goel and the saffron party’s North West Delhi candidate Hans Raj Hans were present when Mehndi was officially inducted into the party.

This comes a few days after Hindi film actor Sunny Deol joined the party and was fielded from Gurdaspur in Punjab.

In March 2018, Mehndi was convicted in a human trafficking case from 2003 by a court in Punjab, and sentenced him to two years in jail. But soon afterwards, he was granted bail.

The singer and his brother Shamsher Singh used to send people abroad illegally – under the guise of being members of his troupe – and would charge hefty “passage money”. They had taken two troupes two troupes to the United States in 1998 and 1999, illegally dropping off 10 people in the country.