Coming in as the latest addition to the Aam Aadmi Party, former chairman of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) Standing Committee and BJP councillor from Chhatarpur Kartar Singh Tanwar along with six other leaders from BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress officially joined the party on Tuesday.
While all the seven members who joined AAP on Tuesday were DMC councillors, four of them — Tanwar, Sharad Kumar Chauhan, who was BSP’s Narela candidate last Assembly election and narrowly lost by a margin of 800 votes, Congress member Memwati Berwala and BJP’s former youth leader Vijay Bansal — are likely to be in the forefront when the next list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections is announced.
The addition of these seven new faces in AAP has also started the party’s campaign against corruption in the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) “fuelled by the BJP”. Senior party leader Sanjay Singh said, “The increasing corruption in DMC is a reason to worry. BJP councillor from ward 24 of Bhati (Chhatarpur) Kartar Tanwar has seen very closely the kind of corruption that has been instilled in the corporation in all departments. It is blatant through this recent Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan that BJP is the cause of this corruption. They haven’t even managed to regulate and stop
corruption in DMC, so how will they do so in the countryIJ”
The other names who have joined AAP are councillor Reeta Chauhan, who represents the Bakhtawarpur ward in Narela Assembly constituency and had quit BSP in 2012, Congress leader from Mundka Assembly constituency, Dharampal lakra and Congress’ Baldev Balwan.
According to Tanwar, every single department of DMC is corrupt to such an extent that without paying bribe no job is done. “DMC has never fulfilled its duty completely. There has always been some sort of bribe that one had to pay at every level. However, when AAP was in power for 49 days, there was a significant change and
corruption had stopped. I have come to realise that only Kejriwal can change the system and that’s why I have joined the party. I haven’t come to fight elections or become an MlA. I only want to help in whatever way the party’s senior leaders deem right,” said Tanwar.