AAP MP Sanjay Singh addresses
In 2016, the public voted Congress to power in Arunachal Pradesh, but all its MLAs defected to the BJP, helping it form a govt. In 2016, nine MLAs in Uttarakhand; in 2017 and 2022, 13 and eight MLAs in Goa, respectively; 13 MLAs in Karnataka in 2019; and 22 Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh in 2020 broke away and joined the BJP, helping it form govts. Lucknow : Raising questions over a possible AAP alliance with the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh announced that the party would contest all upcoming elections alone.
Singh, who made the announcement while rebutting Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge ’s claim that AAP was the BJP ’s B team, made it clear that AAP was no longer a member of the INDIA bloc and that the party was working to expand its organisation “independently”. Hitting out at Congress over Kharge’s remarks made in poll-bound Punjab, Singh said Congress MLAs had allowed the BJP to form governments in several states by switching sides. Such a party has no moral right to raise questions about AAP,” Singh said. Asking Congress to evaluate its own failures, Singh said the party had been consistently losing in states where AAP did not even have a presence.
“Look at Congress’s history and its record of horse-trading of legislators. Its seniormost leaders had switched sides to join the BJP, including former Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan, former Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh, former Andhra Pradesh CM Kiran Reddy and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma. A party that cannot stop its own stalwarts from leaving for the BJP has no business lecturing others.