On 2nd April, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak told the AAP MLAs from Punjab that those who wished to leave the party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were free to leave. His statement came after two prominent leaders of AAP joined the BJP. Addressing a meeting of MLAs and party workers in Ludhiana, he referred to the decision of Sushil Kumar Rinku and Sheetal Angural to shift to BJP and said, “They will long for votes. They are moving to BJP because that party is in power.”
Pathak added, “Those who want to leave can do so. If you join BJP after getting all those crores of rupees and ministerial berth or any plum post in the government, would you be able to face people who voted for you?” He further claimed AAP would win all 13 seats in Punjab for the upcoming elections.
Sandeep Pathak said, “Yes, we are having some internal hiccups; we are still learning how to run the government (in Punjab), but all guarantees given by (CM) Bhagwant Mann will be completed. I would request all of you, with folded hands, to please keep your issues and misunderstandings aside for some days and unite to make AAP victorious in the coming elections. Go village to village and tell people how the scared BJP has put (AAP national convenor) Arvind Kejriwal in jail.”
“Everyone has been asking how your party will run when Kejriwal is in jail… BJP is celebrating, but I must tell everyone that our party, AAP, will continue the run as it was. He (Kejriwal) will keep giving us directions from the jail, and we will follow his every order like a true party soldier,” Sandeep Pathak added.
Sushil Kumar Rinku was the sole MP of AAP in Lok Sabha, and Sheetal Angural was the AAP MLA from the Ludhiana West constituency. While these two decided to shift to BJP, some AAP MLAs claimed that BJP offered them crores to leave AAP. One of them, Rajunderpal Kaur Chinna, MLA from Ludhiana South for AAP, filed an FIR claiming BJP offered her Rs 5 crores to leave AAP and join them.
Notably, since AAP supremo and Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal went to jail, the party is under much pressure as there is no face to ask for votes for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Kejriwal was sent to Delhi Sessions Court for judicial custody till the 15th of April, and the first phase of voting for the Lok Sabha election is on the 16th of April. It will be interesting to see if AAP leaders who are not in jail campaign for the polls on the ground or if they decide to rally around the issue of Kejriwal’s arrest to gain sympathy votes from Delhi itself.
While Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain are in jail, Sanjay Singh was granted bail on 2nd April after ED did not oppose bail in the Supreme Court. Raghav Chadha has not returned from the UK after the “eye operation”. Atishi Marlena and Saurabh Bharadwaj were in shock when their name surfaced in the court for the first time on 1st April, and it seems they would take some time to recover from the shock as Atishi has already predicted ED would arrest her and three other AAP leaders soon. The future of AAP for the Lok Sabha elections appears bleak.
