Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) President Anil Kumar.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar on December 10 confirmed that the Delhi unit’s Vice-president Ali Mehdi and two councillors are still with the party, a day after the latter had defected to the AAP.
On December 9, two of the Congress’s winning candidates in the MCD polls — Sabeela Begum from the Mustafabad ward and Nazia Khatoon from the Brijpuri ward — had joined the AAP, along Mr. Mehdi.
“We won nine seats in the MCD polls, and we have nine councillors, they are a part of the Congress family. What Arvind Kejriwal’s and his ministers are indulging into is nothing but dirty politics,” he said, in the presence of Mr. Mehdi and the two councillors.
Earlier this year, AAP had accused the BJP of poaching its MLAs in Delhi and Punjab through “Operation Lotus”.
BJP leaders including national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala and Delhi unit media cell head Harish Khurana at a press conference in Delhi on December 10 alleged the AAP of trying to poach the party’s newly elected councillors.
Mr. Poonawala alleged a “new model” of the AAP — “Pralobhan for Parshad” (alluring councillors) — has come to the fore. The allegations of the BJP have come close to two Congress councillors joining the AAP on December 9. The deserters, however, came back to their party hours after switching to the AAP.
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Speaking on the Congress councillors joining the AAP, Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor had said: “The people of Delhi are today amazed to see that AAP leaders, who till yesterday were expressing fear of ‘Operation Lotus’, have today themselves started ‘Operation Loot’ against a decimated Congress. It is regrettable that those who are themselves indulging in political loot, level allegations against the BJP.”
The AAP ended BJP’s 15-year rule at the civic body bagging 134 of 250 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) wards, the results of which were declared on Wednesday.
The BJP lost the MCD polls at the hands of the AAP managing to win 104 wards.
(With inputs from PTI)