Within a week he was named as Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate from Amritsar Central, the three-time MlA Darbari lal on Wednesday returned to the Congress fold after snubbing AAP’s ticket.
Taking twists and turns, AAP, on the other hand, announced cancellation of Darbari lal’s candidature first “due to ill health”, and then due to “corruption charges”.
lal, a three-time Congress MlA and former Congress deputy speaker in the state assembly, had earlier moved to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and later left the party to join AAP.
lal's candidature was announced by AAP on January 6 while he was not even party’s member. His name was announced by unceremoniously replacing Rajinder Kumar, in less than 24 hours, as AAP’s Amritsar Central candidate.
Interestingly, AAP Punjab convener Gurpreet Singh Waraich (Ghuggi) announced that candidature of Darbari lal had been cancelled due to his ill health, and the senior leader was “admitted in a hospital since last three days and was unable to campaign in the area”. Ghuggi said that the announcement of new candidate will be made shortly.
Soon as the reports of lal joining Congress spread, AAP came out with another press note “in the form of a clarification” contradicting Ghuggi’s statement. The second press note, credited to none, stated that the cancellation of candidature of Darbari lal was due to corruption charges.
“AAP Media Cell issued a press note while ago about cancellation of candidature of Darbari lal from Amritsar Central constituency on account of bad health. This is to clarify that his candidature has been cancelled after serious allegation of corruption surfaced against him. After due verification, party decided to cancel his candidature…New candidate from Amritsar Central will be announced soon,” read the press note.
Returning to the Congress fold, lal said that he had realized the party, led by Capt Amarinder Singh, was the only hope of succour for the crisis-ridden state of Punjab. Capt Amarinder said that Darbari lal had left the Congress earlier due to some genuine grudges he had with the party, which had now been sorted out and he had, hence, decided to rejoin and help all the party candidates in Amritsar.
lal told the media that he had no desire for a ticket and only wanted to serve the state, which was why he had decided to leave the corrupt and selfish AAP, even though he had got the ticket from Kejriwal’s party to contest the Assembly polls.