Rebel AAP MLA Alka Lamba on Wednesday said that she has not submitted a written resignation to the party and has not taken up a Congress membership. She said this during a hearing at the Delhi Assembly on a disqualification petition moved by AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.
Ms. Lamba had earlier this month tweeted that she has resigned from the party (AAP) membership.
“There was a twitter war by Saurabh Bharadwaj and I told him over twitter than I am resigning from the party. But I never gave a written resignation. Now, it is up to the Speaker to decide whether he can treat it as an official resignation,” Ms. Lamba told The Hindu .
She told the media that people have elected her and she would not resign as an MLA and also alleged that the Assembly Speaker was under pressure from AAP. The rebel MLA said that if she is disqualified as an MLA, then she would protest outside the Chief Minister’s house to get people’s work done.
Attacking Ms. Lamba, Mr. Bharadwaj said in a tweet, “Alka Lamba is scared today. She claimed her Twitter resignation from AAP should not be taken seriously After announcing her Congress joining with Sonia Gandhi, she claims everything was a lie. Can such people be trusted for anything? Is there any value of their announcements? [sic]”
Long fight
Ms. Lamba has been maintaining the stand that she will contest on a Congress ticket if the party approaches her, else she will contest as an independent from Chandni Chowk.
In December 2018, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had sought disciplinary action against Ms. Lamba for being at the forefront of criticism against a demand by some AAP MLAs to recall the Bharat Ratna conferred on late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
This rift between Ms. Lamba and the party has been growing ever since, but she has not formally resigned from the party. She has been vocal against AAP for the last couple of months and has not been called for party meetings.
