NEW DELHI: Days before the election of mayor and deputy mayor for the second year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor from Dwarka C ward, Sunita, joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday.Her husband Ramniwas, who was elected a councillor on a BJP ticket in 2002, also joined it. They had joined AAP in 2021.Calling it “cheap politics”, AAP alleged that BJP was offering crores of rupees to its councillors to switch sides.At a press conference, Sunita said she had an old relationship with BJP. “We had joined AAP with the hope of change, but there was only corruption and disappointment. It left us disheartened and we were forced to leave AAP,” Sunita said, adding that she was influenced by the work of PM Narendra Modi and his efficient leadership.Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, who inducted Sunita back into the party, alleged new cases of corruption against the Kejriwal government were coming out every day and several AAP councillors were feeling suffocated and looking towards BJP with a new hope. “In AAP, municipal councillors are given instructions like bonded labourers. There is no consideration, only harassment,” he claimed.AAP MLA and MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak accused BJP of resorting to “cheap politics” ahead of the mayoral elections. “BJP is offering crores of rupees to our councillors to switch sides. Their only motive is to buy councillors by hook or by crook. MCD was a big source of BJP’s loot and that’s why they are restless after losing the civic elections last year,” Pathak alleged.He added that AAP would give a befitting reply to BJP in the upcoming mayor and deputy mayor elections.Dismissing the allegations of horse trading, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said Pathak was “politically frustrated” and his statement that BJP was giving money to AAP councillors was just a “rhetoric”.”As his party’s MCD in-charge, Pathak ran a three-year election campaign ahead of the civic polls, but AAP could barely win the election with a slim margin. Pathak used to claim that BJP would hardly win 10-15 seats, but we emerged winners in 42% of the wards,” Kapoor alleged. “It would be better for Pathak to control growing corruption in his party, otherwise more AAP councillors would leave it,” he added.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-aap-councillor-back-in-bjp-sparks-war-of-words/articleshow/99742764.cms