In a double setback for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, its lone Lok Sabha MP, Sushil Kumar Rinku from Jalandhar, and Jalandhar West MLA Sheetal Angural joined the BJP in Delhi on Wednesday.
BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde welcomed them in the presence of Punjab BJP chief Sunil Kumar Jakhar and Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
Rinku was the AAP’s lone Lok Sabha MP, and he was suspended during the House’s Monsoon Session in 2023 for indiscipline. A three-time Congress municipal councillor and one-time MLA from Jalandhar (West), he joined the AAP in 2023 ahead of the bypolls to fill the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat vacated by former Congress MP Santokh Chaudhary, who died of cardiac arrest during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Rinku said the AAP lagged in Jalandhar on the development front. “We could not fulfil the promises made during the byelection as my government did not support me. In Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s style of functioning impressed me. Whatever works related to Jalandhar I took to the Centre were granted, and the Adampur airport was operationalised,” he said.
“Jalandhar was given a stop for the Vande Bharat train. We need railway overbridges in Jalandhar and Adampur. I have seen a ray of hope, and I am conducting a new experiment. I do not have any greed myself, but I have wishes for the residents of Jalandhar,” added Rinku.
The AAP learned of Rinku’s joining the BJP when he suddenly disappeared from the campaign after being named the candidate.
He was among the first eight candidates announced by the AAP. It is learnt that the AAP got into a damage control mode and tried to retain him. Rinku resurfaced in Jalandhar and said he was away to Ayodhya to pay obeisance at Ram Mandir. However, he started making statements that he needed money to contest elections as funding three elections in two years was difficult.
Angural, who became a first-time MLA in 2022, will hand over his resignation from the Assembly on Thursday. With his defection, the Jalandhar (west) seat will go into a bypoll. Interestingly, Angural defeated Rinku in the 2022 Assembly elections when the latter was with the Congress. Both Rinku and Angural are from Scheduled Castes (SC) in the SC-dominated Doaba region. A few days ago, the AAP had roped in SC leader Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal from the Chabbewal segment.
On Tuesday, the BJP had poached Congress MP from Ludhiana, Ravneet Bittu, a few hours after announcing that it would contest the Lok Sabha elections alone without any alliance partner in Punjab. Bittu is the grandson of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, who was assassinated in 1995 in Chandigarh in a suicide bombing.
Lok Sabha elections 2024 in Punjab will be held in a single phase on June 1 to elect 13 MPs. This will be the seventh and last phase of polls across the country. The results will be declared nationwide on June 4.
