Delhi assembly election: 8 AAP MLAs join BJP ahead of polls

Election in the national capital is scheduled to be held in a single phase on February 5

With just four days left for the February 5 Delhi Assembly elections, eight outgoing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday. Their resignations from AAP’s primary membership came a day earlier, citing concerns over alleged corruption and ideological drift.

Interestingly, none of them were given poll tickets by AAP this time.

The MLAs who joined BJP are Vandana Gaur (Palam), Rohit Mehraulia (Trilokpuri), Girish Soni (Madipur), Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Rajesh Rishi (Uttam Nagar), B S Joon (Bijwasan), Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli) and Pawan Sharma (Adarsh Nagar).

After resigning from the AAP, they said they had also sent their resignation letters to the Assembly speaker, relinquishing their membership of the House.

Election in the national capital is scheduled to be held in a single phase on February 5, with counting of votes to be done three days later. The 2025 polls will see a triangular contest between the AAP, BJP and Congress.

In the last two polls in 2020 and 2015, voters overwhelmingly backed AAP, giving them 67 and 62 seats respectively in the 70-member Assembly. The AAP is hopeful of repeating the outcome this time as well.

Former AAP MLA Vijender Garg and several other leaders of the Kejriwal-led party too joined the saffron outfit in the presence of Baijayant Panda, its national vice-president and the in-charge of the Delhi BJP, and state president Virendra Sachdeva.

Welcoming the MLAs and leaders to the BJP, Panda said it is a "historic" day as they have gotten rid of "AAPda" (disaster) and hoped that after the February 5 polls, Delhi too will be freed from it.

(With PTI inputs)