Two-time AAP MLA Rajesh Gupta joins BJP ahead of MCD bypolls: 'Many people want to leave...'

AAP leader Rajesh Gupta joins BJP ahead of MCD bypolls (Image: PTI)

A day before voters head to the polls for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) by-elections, Aam Aadmi Party’s two-time MLA Rajesh Gupta walked out of the party and entered the Bharatiya Janata Party.

His induction took place on Saturday in the presence of Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, who greeted him with the party stole alongside MLA Rajkumar Bhatia and the organisation’s media head Praveen Shankar Kapoor.

Gupta, visibly emotional, sharply criticised AAP national convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying he had long felt undervalued despite years of organisational work.

According to him, “use and throw” was the attitude that Kejriwal displayed toward party workers, a tendency he claimed had contributed significantly to AAP’s weakening over time. Gupta said the immediate spark that led him to resign was the ticket distribution for the municipal polls, particularly the choice of a candidate who had earlier received a notice from AAP.

Sachdeva, while welcoming Gupta, remarked that the former MLA had earned a reputation as a responsible public representative and argued that Kejriwal simply failed to acknowledge his efforts.

He added that Kejriwal’s prolonged absence from Delhi and the way he exited the national capital were issues that, in his words, “deserve close examination.”

Gupta echoed the criticism by recalling how several well-known faces who had once joined AAP with great enthusiasm eventually distanced themselves from Kejriwal. “One by one, they all chose to leave him. Today, unfortunately, I have also joined that list," he noted, describing a shared sense of disappointment among former colleagues.

“They (AAP) don’t care about the people now who left their jobs during Anna Andolan… Many people want to leave (AAP), and I think they should. It’s not easy. They should go somewhere where they get respect; a party which doesn't use and throw their workers," he said.

The Delhi BJP chief also targeted the AAP leadership broadly, alleging that Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and other senior figures had “harmed Delhi” and were now “comfortably settled in Punjab.”

In his view, AAP had left the capital in a deteriorated condition over the last 12 years, forcing the newly formed BJP government to bear the consequences.

Gupta’s shift to the BJP takes place even as the party has fielded 53 candidates across 12 MCD wards, nine of which it previously controlled. Sunday’s bypolls represent the first electoral battle in Delhi since the BJP returned to power in the assembly after 27 years, giving the contest added significance.