MCD councillors of Congress Sabila Begum (right) and Nazia Khatoon and party leader Ali Mehdi during a press conference at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office, on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar on Saturday confirmed that the party’s state vice-president and two councillors have rejoined the grand old party, within hours of defecting to the Aam Aadmi Party.
On Friday, two of the party’s newly elected councillors — Sabila Begum from Mustafabad ward and Nazia Khatoon from Brijpuri ward — along with its Delhi unit vice-president Ali Mehdi, had joined AAP.
“We won nine seats in the MCD [Municipal Corporation of Delhi] polls, and we have nine councillors, all of them are part of the Congress family. What Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers are indulging in is nothing but dirty politics,” he said, in the presence of Mr. Mehdi, and all nine councillors, including Ms. Begum and Ms. Khatoon.
In the midnight hours of Saturday, only hours after he had joined AAP, Mr. Mehdi posted a video on Twitter in which he apologised for his move, and said he was a “committed worker” of the Congress party. Senior Congress leaders, including Ajay Maken, also criticised his move.
Stating that he had committed a “grave mistake”, Mr. Mehdi told Today News 24 he was approached by “senior AAP leaders” to shift sides, adding that the latter made “promises” of “increased funds” for the two councillors to carry out development works in their respective wards.
“Both wards are part of the Mustafabad Assembly constituency, which has hardly seen any development works in the past eight years, especially since the Congress lost the Assembly seat. I was emotional, and took the decision thinking that it would lead to better facilities for the residents. But I realised that I made a mistake and decided to act on it,” Mr. Mehdi further said.
When reached for a response, AAP declined to comment.
Earlier this year, AAP had accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of poaching its MLAs in the Capital, and in Punjab, through “Operation Lotus”. The BJP — in its initial reaction to the councillors shifting sides — accused AAP of running “Operation Loot”.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor hit out at AAP stating that the incident has “exposed” the latter’s “immature leadership”.
He added, “By indulging in the sale and purchase of councillors before and after the civic elections, the AAP leadership has lost the moral right to speak on the issue of party-hopping. People of Delhi want to know from Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia on whether they approve of this power game being played in the MCD by their in-charge Durgesh Pathak.”
