Come elections, and the season of poaching and shifting loyalties has once again returned to Punjab. leading the race is the Congress party which is attracting almost all the political parties in the State ahead crucial 2017 Punjab polls. The last Sunday of the year witnessed several prominent leaders from the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party jumping on the Congress bandwagon, while Dalbir Kaur, sister of Indian national Sarabjit Singh who died in a Pakistan jail in 2013, on Sunday joined the saffron brigade. Among those who joined Punjab Congress include AAP’s former national executive committee member Yamini Gomar, SAD’s former leader from Atam Nagar and councillor Kamaljit Singh Karwal who was once considered close to MlA Simarjit Singh Bains, AAP leader and former chief commissioner (Income Tax) lR Nayyar, AAP’s party observer Gagan Sahni among others.
Meanwhile, a number of the BJP leaders from Doraha, also joined Congress. Prominent among them were Doraha BJP Mandal chief Rahul Bector, vice-president Anish Bector, secretary Varun Sharma and general secretary Anoop Bector, besides several Municipal Councillors and other BJP leaders.
“All these leaders had joined the party “unconditionally” as they had become “completely disillusioned with the policies of their respective parties and the agendas of their leaders”, said Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh.
Capt Amarinder hailed their joining as another milestone in the Congress' journey towards a “clear majority” in the upcoming Assembly polls, saying that these developments highlighted the “complete wipeout” of all the other parties in the fray.
Karwal, who had met Capt Amarinder in Delhi, was associated with SAD since 2007, except for a brief period in 2014. “The anti-people policies of the party,” he said, had encouraged him to take the decision to move to the Congress.
Yamini Gomar, who had openly accused Kejriwal and AAP of being “anti-Dalit, anti-Sikh and anti-Punjab”, said: “AAP is in total mess, with its leadership befooling the people of Punjab with fake promises…AAP leadership is not even ready to blink its eyes over the issues of corruption and promotion of criminals in the party.”
She said that there was hardly any AAP leader who fulfilled the party's motto of not being involved in corruption and not having criminal record. “More than 70 percent of the AAP volunteers, who had joined the party with an aim to see Punjab on roads of progress, are completely shattered with party leaders busy promoting their own vested interests,” she said.
Many more genuine people in AAP, who were feeling suffocated there, would join Congress fold in the coming days, she said.
Yamini, who contested 2014 lok Sabha elections on AAP ticket, said that no honest person who has the interests of Punjab in his heart can remain with AAP, given the complete moral bankruptcy of its leadership.
She said that the Congress could save the state and its people from doom.
Both Nayyar and Sahni also backed Yamini, saying that AAP was a party of “corrupt and greedy individuals who had no interest in the welfare of the people of Punjab”.