AAP candidate from Ferozepur resigns, joins Congress
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Jan, 2022 11:37 AM
Hours after quitting as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Ferozepur (Rural) constituency in Punjab on Monday, Ashu Bangar was inducted into the Congress by party Chief Minister Charanjit Channi.
Channi in Chandigarh announced that Bangar would be party's candidate from the Ferozepur (Rural) seat as he is young with dreams to serve society.
Earlier, poll debutant Bangar told the media in Ferozepur that he was being "humiliated and pressurised" by the AAP leadership to spend more on electioneering.
He alleged AAP is being run like a private company by leaders from Delhi. "Candidates are pressurised with threats that their ticket would be cancelled, so no one speaks up."
He said AAP was functioning like a private company under state in-charge Raghav Chadha, "who was behaving like a dictator and mentally torturing AAP volunteers". "All decisions are being taken from Delhi without taking local Punjabis taken into confidence."
He also took objection to the AAP's charge that Balbir Singh Rajewal-led Samyukt Samaj Morcha is in league with the BJP.
He said people were angry with Chadha over his remarks against farmers when they refused to support the AAP.
Responding to Bangar's allegations against AAP, Congress spokesperson Alka Lamba, in a video message, said: "History repeats itself once again. In 2017, similar allegations were made against AAP and Punjabis never forgave them. It shows that only faces have changed but their modus operandi remains the same."
Refuting Bangar's allegations, Chadha said: "There is a conspiracy to hurt the AAP and I'm told that a senior leader of the Congress had called up the Ferozepur candidate and put pressure on him to quit the party."
Punjab will go to the polls in a single phase for the 117-member assembly on February 20.
Sixty-five-year-old Fakir Chand, an area resident, says: “Imran Khan’s maternal family was based here. Shaukat Khanum, Imran’s mother, belonged to this place. They were instrumental in setting up Islamia College here in the early 1940s.”
Union Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj on Friday expressed concerns at the apathy on the part of states, including Punjab, to take action against dubious agents running racket of illegally sending people abroad.
A preliminary magisterial probe report on Friday sought “deeper investigation” into the conduct of the father of three girls, who allegedly died due to starvation in East Delhi, and said he had given them some “unknown medicine”.
Sacked from the position of Leader of Opposition, Bholath MLA Sukhpal Khaira on Friday took a defiant stand asking Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership to revoke the decision.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said that her ministry is framing a new law to tackle the problem in NRI marriages and providing for deterrent measures like confiscating property of NRIs who have abandoned their wives.
