Gone in 6 hours! Why BJP expelled ex-Delhi minister Sandeep Kumar within hours of his induction

Sandeep Kumar served as the Women and Child Development minister of Delhi from 2015-2016. He was sacked by the AAP following controversy.

In a bizarre turn of events, the Haryana unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party sacked rebel Aam Aadmi Party leader and former Delhi minister Sandeep Kumar from the party barely hours after welcoming him into the party fold.

The events transpired on Saturday with the former Delhi minister joining the BJP in the presence of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Saini at an event in Panchkula at around 5 PM on August 10. However, the party announced at around 11 PM that Sandeep Kumar has been removed from the party.

In a letter issued to the media late Saturday evening, BJP’s Haryana in-charge Surendra Poonia said that the party resorted to the action since Kumar “hid certain facts about his life” prior to his entry into the party.

"Sandeep Kumar has been suspended from the primary membership of the party for hiding certain facts about his past life," Poonia’s letter said.

Hailing from Sargathal village in Sonipat, Sandeep Kumar graduated from Delhi University in 2004, and earned a law degree from Chaudhary Charan Singh University in 2009.

Having joined the Aam Aadmi Party soon after its inception, Sandeep Kumar shot to the limelight after defeating five-time MLA Jai Kishan in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections.

He was eventually appointed as a minister in the AAP-ruled Delhi government and handed the charge of the Ministry of Women and Child Development. He was, however, sacked as a minister in August 2016 and eventually suspended from the party’s primary membership.

The BJP maintained that it had sacked the rebel AAP leader on the charge that he allegedly concealed certain facets of his past life from the party at the time of joining.

Notably, Sandeep Kumar was sacked from the Delhi government and was suspended from the AAP after a CD emerged showing him in a compromising position with two women. "Received ‘objectionable’ CD of minister Sandeep Kr. AAP stands for propriety in public life. That can’t be compromised. Removing him from Cabinet wid immediate effect," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind  Kejriwal had tweeted.

Notably, Sandeep Kumar was one of the petitioners seeking Kejriwal's removal as the Delhi CM following the former's arrest in the Delhi excise policy case. The plea was eventually dismissed with costs.

On September 3, 2016, Kumar was arrested by the Delhi Police following a complaint by a woman claiming that the then Delhi minister allegedly spiked her drink, raped her and filmed the act.

As per the woman complainant, she was exploited under the pretext of providing the victim a ration card. Sandeep Kumar denied the allegations and said he was being framed for being a Dalit.