Former AAP MLA Alka Lamba returns to Cong
Former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Chandni Chowk Alka Lamba on Saturday joined the Congress in the presence of the party’s Delhi unit in-charge PC Chacko.
Lamba joining the Congress is likely to make the Chandni Chowk seat a close contest if she is given a ticket for the upcoming assembly elections in Delhi.
The AAP is likely to field fourtime former Congress MLA Parlad Singh Sawhney from the seat. Sawhney quit the Congress party on October 6 and joined the AAP. Lamba had quit the Congress after 20 years in December 2014 to join the AAP. She was elected as MLA from Chandni Chowk assembly constituency on a AAP ticket in 2015.
Sawhney was MLA from Chandni Chowk Assembly constituency from 1998 to 2015. In 2015, he was defeated by Lamba.
Lamba’s move to become an official member of the Congress comes after she was disqualified as a member of the Delhi Assembly by Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, under the anti-defection law on September 19. She had announced her decision to join the Congress early last month, when she resigned from the primary membership of the AAP.
After her induction on Saturday, Lamba said she decided to return to the Congress as it is the only party which can take care of Delhiites. “The AAP government led by Kejriwal did not do any concrete work for the benefit of Delhiites in the last five years. Workers like me always put questions before him, they elicited no response,” she said, after singing Congress’ membership. Lamba alleged that AAP supremo and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal “functions like an autocrat”. “He never listens to AAP workers and the elected representatives of the party. As a result, development work has suffered. With an eye on the upcoming assembly elections, he is once again trying to fool the people of Delhi by making hollow promises,” she said