Third jolt in 2 days: Another AAP leader joins Akali Dal

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 21

A day after two AAP leaders – HS Walia and Col CD Singh Kamboj (retd) – joined the Akali Dal, AAP’s Hans Raj Rana, who fought from Adampur in 2017, also joined the SAD on Monday.

Rana joined the party in the presence of SAD president Sukhbir Badal. With the fourth AAP leader quitting the party in a week, the SAD has clearly emerged as the favoured party for AAP quitters. With Rana, four of AAP candidates, who had contested the 2017 elections on the party ticket, have quit the party — three of them joining the Akali Dal.

While AAP’s Kartarpur candidate Chandan Grewal had quit the party in October 2017 citing personal reasons, Shahkot candidate Dr Amarjit Thind had left the party in March, followed by Cantt candidate Walia and then Rana.

Rana said, “I am disillusioned with AAP because its leadership professed idealism, but indulged in rampant corruption. The AAP has failed the populace of Punjab. We waited for some duties to be entrusted upon us but there was no dialogue between Delhi and Punjab workers.”

On choosing SAD, he said, “We have seen the Congress misrule in the past one year. The CM does not have time for Punjab or even for Shahkot. The Akali Dal is hence emerging as a potent alternative.”