Former AAP Chandni Chowk legislator Alka Lamba joined the Congress on Saturday in the presence of the party’s Delhi unit in-charge P.C. Chacko.
Ms. Lamba had announced her decision to join the Congress last month when she resigned from the primary membership of AAP following which she was disqualified as a member of the Delhi Assembly by Speaker Ram Niwas Goel under the Anti-Defection Law.
“The AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal did not do any concrete work for the benefit of Delhiites in the last five years. Though workers like me have always put questions before the CM, they elicited no response from him,” she alleged at the All India Congress Committee headquarters here.
“Mr. Kejriwal, who functions like an autocrat, never listens to AAP workers and elected representatives of the party. As a result, development work has suffered. With an eye on the upcoming Assembly election, he is once again trying to fool the people of Delhi by making hollow promises,” she said.
A 20-year stint
Ms. Lamba had quit the Congress after a 20-year stint, in December 2014, to join AAP after which she was fielded and elected as an AAP MLA from the Chandni Chowk Assembly constituency in 2015.
Ms. Lamba said she decided to return to the Congress as it was the only party which can take care of Delhiites. Ms. Lamba’s relationship with AAP had begun souring after she protested against a resolution in the Delhi Assembly in December last year that demanded that the Bharat Ratna awarded to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi be withdrawn over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
With the probability that the Congress could field Ms. Lamba from Chandni Chowk in the upcoming polls, four-time Congress MLA from the constituency, Parlad Singh Sawhney quit the party on October 6 and joined AAP.
According to sources in AAP, Mr. Sawhney is seeking an AAP ticket for his son for the Assembly elections.
