Chandigarh: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab dealt a blow to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal Badal (SAD) with their two senior leaders joining it in Jalandhar on Saturday.
The two leaders - BJP OBC wing secretary Kuldeep Singh Shanty and SAD SC wing Doaba general secretary Gurdarshan Lal - were inducted into AAP by the state president and chief minister Bhagwant Mann. The party’s Jalandhar (SC) MP candidate Pawan Kumar Tinu and senior AAP leader Rajwinder Kaur Thiara were also present on the occasion.
The party also got a boost as a prominent youth leader of Gurdaspur constituency and Punjab vice president of the NSUI Rahul Sharma also joined the AAP. Sharma was also inducted into the party by Mann in the presence of AAP Punjab general secretary Jagroop Singh Sekhwan.
Speaking on the occasion, Mann said that impressed by the work of the AAP government in the last two years, people from every section of Punjab were continuously joining the AAP and that the party would create history by winning Lok Sabha elections in Punjab by winning all the 13 seats of the state.
It may be recalled that earlier this week, the BJP state Scheduled Castes (SC) morcha vice-president Robin Sampla had left the saffron party and joined AAP. A prominent SC leader, Robin Sampla has a stronghold in Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency, especially among the youth. He is also nephew of senior BJP leader Vijay Sampla, a former MP and Union minister, who was the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.
Notably, the only MP of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, Sushil Kumar Rinku, had joined BJP a few days ago, whom the saffron party has fielded from Jalandhar. Interestingly, even though Rinku was also announced as its candidate from Jalandhar (SC) seat by AAP about a fortnight ago, yet he shifted over to BJP and now he contests from there on BJP ticket.
