Amritsar: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inducted former Punjab IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh into the party. The move is being assumed to be a significant step for the party ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls which are scheduled for next year in March-April some time.
Kejriwal, who visited Amritsar on Monday, said that "Kunwar Vijay Pratap is not a politician. He was called ‘aam aadmi ka policewala’. We all are here to serve the nation. With this sentiment, he has joined the party today."
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The former top cop’s decision to join the AAP will further boost the party’s prospects in next year’s assembly elections. The 1988-batch Punjab cadre IPS officer, who headed the SIT to investigate the 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents besides the sacrilege cases, was said to be one of the most trusted officers of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who was scheduled to retire in 2029, however, sought premature retirement and resigned earlier on April 11 after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on April 9 quashed the SIT probe.
Meanwhile, the party’s national convener also announced that the party’s chief minister candidate in Punjab will be from the Sikh community. “It will be someone whom the whole of Punjab feels proud of,” Kejriwal said. “We feel it’s the Sikh community’s right,” he added in his address during the day-long visit to Amritsar.
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The AAP, which emerged as the main opposition party in Punjab in Punjab in the 2017 assembly polls, has been critical of both the ruling Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the state on the sacrilege issue.