In a big jolt to BJP ahead crucial Punjab Assembly elections, veteran BJP leader and former State Minister Satpal Gosain, along with several party leaders and supporters from ludhiana, on Friday joined the Congress party.
Gosain, a veteran BJP leader and three-time MlA from ludhiana, joined the party along with three-time and sitting BJP councillor from ludhiana Gurdeep Singh Neetu, who was a prominent Sikh face of the BJP in ludhiana.
Along with Gosain, who has served as Punjab health minister and was also deputy speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, his grandson and BJP’s ludhiana spokesperson Amit Gosain has also joined the Congress.
The move came as 78-year-old Gosain was reportedly upset with the party for being denied the party ticket from ludhiana Central and giving it to his relative, Gurdev Sharma Debi, who is an industrialist and liquor baron.
Besides Gosain, who was reportedly dropped due to the age factor, his grandson Amit Gosain, son Sudarshan Gosain and daughter Rajeshwari Gosain too were in the race for the ticket from the same seat.
Satpal Gosain had lost in 2012 to Congress’s Surinder Dawar by 7,000 votes.
He has alleged that the party workers were against fielding Debi, and there was a lot of resentment against him.
Gosain joined the party along with three-time and sitting BJP councillor from ludhiana Gurdeep Singh Neetu, who was one of the most prominent Sikh faces of BJP in ludhiana.
AAP’s prospective candidate from Maur Simrat Kaur Dhaliwal, who was the party’s Punjab women wing president, said that she had decided to quit Arvind Kejriwal’s party as it had demanded a hefty Rs 50 lakh for her for the seat.
Terming AAP’s promises to the people of Punjab a complete farce, she said that they were violating all principles they had stood for and were selling tickets for exorbitant sums.
Her joining comes just three days after an AAP candidate quit the party to join Congress.
Another AAP leader to join the Congress was Ashok Prashar Pappi, who decided to return home to the Congress less than five months after he quit the party to come out in support of Kejriwal.
Pappi, who was Congress candidate from ludhiana East in 2012, said that AAP was a party of corrupt individuals who were exploiting the people for their vested interests.
Rakesh Prashar, a sitting Congress councillor who had also switched to AAP, has now returned to the Congress after suffering major disenchantment in AAP.
Among the joinees were also two senior SAD leaders, including Birender Goel, who has been brought into the Congress fold by former chief minister and senior party leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, against whom he had contested on BJP ticket way back in 1992.
Goel has joined Congress along with a dozen of his supporters and said hundreds of other supporters of his would be joining the election campaign of Bhattal, the Congress candidate from lehra.
Janmohan Sharma, another senior Congress leader who had joined SAD in March 2014, has also returned to the Congress fold. Sharma, a former ludhiana District Congress Committee (Urban) president, said the SAD was a gang of corrupt people and mafia run by the Badals.