Former Union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Harmohan Dhawan officially joined the Aam Aadmi Party in Chandigarh on Sunday. Punjab MP and AAP leader Bhagwant Singh Mann and several other party MLAs were present at the occasion.
Dhawan attacked both the BJP and the Congress at a rally and claimed that neither party had fulfilled their poll promises. He said he had joined the AAP as he wanted to work for the people of Chandigarh.
“I have remained in the BJP and the Congress as well and that is why I am well-versed with their working – how they haven’t been able to carry out any development work for the city,” he said. “As the name suggests, I am here for the ‘aam aadmi’ [common people] and will work for him.”
Dhawan said the BJP had fooled people by not fulfilling its promises made in the previous Lok Sabha elections.
Senior Delhi AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said the party will announced its decision on its candidate for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat in January. He added that AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal will hold a rally in Chandigarh in January.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, actor Gul Panag had contested on an AAP ticket from Chandigarh and come third. The winning candidate was the BJP’s Kirron Kher.
Dhawan was the Janata Party’s MP from Chandigarh constituency in 1989 and civil aviation minister in former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s cabinet. He has been a part of several parties, including the Samajwadi Party, the Indian National Lok Dal, the Chandigarh Vikas Manch, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Congress and then the BJP.
Chandigarh BJP President Sanjay Tandon described Dhawan as a “defector”. “It was our patience that we were able to retain him for eight years,” said Tandon. “The defection word in the dictionary should be replaced by Dhawan ji.”
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