Disqualified Delhi MLA and former Aam Aadmi Party leader Kapil Mishra joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday. The chief of AAP’s women’s wing, Richa Pandey, also switched over to the BJP.
They joined the saffron party in the presence of BJP National Vice President Shyam Jaju and the party’s Delhi unit chief Manoj Tiwari at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
“I welcome Kapil Mishra and Richa Pandey into BJP and hope they will serve Delhi by following the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and philosophy of Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Syama Prasad Mookerjee,” Tiwari said, according to PTI.
Earlier this month, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel disqualified Mishra under the anti-defection law. Mishra, who represented Karawal Nagar in the Assembly, had campaigned for Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Lok Sabha elections. Days later, on August 6, he challenged his disqualification in the Delhi High Court.
Mishra’s lawyers told the court that though all the allegations against him were not disputed, it does not mean he had voluntarily given up the membership of the Aam Aadmi Party. After the disqualification order, Mishra had said he was willing to sacrifice his legislator post for Modi a hundred times over. He also announced that he would campaign for the prime minister in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.
Mishra was sacked as the AAP government’s minister of water resources in Delhi in 2017. He has time and again hit out at party chief and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and once accused him of corruption. On one occasion, he accused Kejriwal of being a Maoist.
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