In a massive blow to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), eight MLAs who had left the party joined the BJP on Saturday, shortly before the Delhi Assembly elections.
The MLAs that switched to the BJP include Vandana Gaur (Palam), Rohit Mehraulia (Trilokpuri), Girish Soni (Madipur), Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Rajesh Rishi (Uttam Nagar), BS Joon (Bijwasan), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), and Pawan Sharma (Adarsh Nagar).
Significantly, seven out of the eight legislators who left AAP were refused tickets to participate in the forthcoming elections and were said to be unhappy with the party’s choice.
Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav was first issued a ticket, but he returned it once the allegations in the Punjab Quran sacrilege case against him were verified. Subsequently, the party substituted him with Mahender Chaudhary. Naresh Yadav ultimately stepped down on Friday.
Following their resignation from AAP, the MLAs announced that they had forwarded their resignation letters to the Assembly Speaker, forfeiting their membership in the House.
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The ex-AAP leaders switched to the BJP in the presence of the party’s national vice-president Baijayant Panda and Delhi unit head Virendraa Sachdeva.
Greeted the new members, Panda termed it a “historic” occasion, stating they had liberated themselves from “AAPda” (calamity). He also mentioned that following the February 5 elections, Delhi would be free from AAP as well.
Palam MLA Bhawna Gaur stated in a letter to AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal that she was resigning because she had lost trust in both him and the party. In the same vein, Madan Lal, the representative from Kasturba Nagar, voiced similar feelings.
“I hereby resign from the primary membership of Aam Aadmi Party as I have lost faith in you and the party. Please accept the same,” Bhawna Gaur and Madan Lal wrote in two separate letters.
The AAP candidate roster for the Delhi elections features Mukesh Goel from Adarsh Nagar, Pravin Kumar from Janakpuri, Surendra Bhardwaj from Bijiwasan, Joginder Solanki from Palam, Ramesh Pehlwan from Kasturba Nagar, and Anjana Parcha from Trilokpuri.
Arvind Kejriwal’s party is aiming for a third straight five-year term in Delhi and encounters strong competition from the BJP, which has not held power in the capital for the past 27 years. The Congress is the third significant party in competition.
