AAP members will switch to Congress before MC polls: Rajinder Beri

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Jalandhar, October 17

After senior Congress leader Rajinder Beri’s petition was dismissed in the court against the delimitation of wards, Beri said they would fight the MC elections no matter what. The Congress party has surely been facing trouble ahead of the elections with several party members joining AAP in recent times. He also said if the former Congress councillors joined AAP, then AAP members would also join the Congress. “Even AAP members are set to join Congress in the coming days, they are in touch with us,” Beri claimed.

Members of the District Congress Committee have been saying the government wanted its nominees to win the elections and the delimitation of wards was done accordingly. Notably, the Congress leaders had been taking legal advice from the start after which they had moved the High Court.

Former Jalandhar Central MLA Rajinder Beri had told The Tribune that the map was released without consulting Jagdish Garg, Gyan Chand and Balraj Thakur, who were members of the delimitation committee. “We are seeking legal advice to challenge the map,” he had said.

He added there was a ward at Dhanowali, in which the SC population was 6,500 and General 3,500. Despite this, the ward had been notified as General. There are many such problems with the map, Beri pointed out.

The Congress faced a major setback here after eight of its former councillors joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ahead of the Municipal Corporation elections that are expected in a month or so.

The ex-councillors joined the ruling AAP in Chandigarh in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Jalandhar Lok Sabha MP Sushil Rinku and Local Bodies Minister Balkar Singh.

Among those who joined the AAP is Desraj Jassal, who was a sitting Congress councillor from Ward number 80 in the last House.

Manmohan Singh Raju from Ward number 16, Deepak Sharda from Ward number 62, JP Shamsher S Khehra from Ward number 8 and Parveena Manu from Ward number 11 have also joined AAP.

Likewise, ex-councillor from Ward number 6 Nirmal S Nimma’s wife Dalwinder Kaur, who too was a Congress councillor in 2012, also joined the AAP. Nimma had already joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) a few months ago.