Ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls slated to be held before February next year, sitting Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Chhatarpur assembly constituency, Kartar Singh Tanwar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Besides him five other AAP leaders including former Delhi social welfare minister Raaj Kumar Anand also joined the saffron party.
Kartar Singh had joined AAP in 2014 and had won from New Delhi's Chhatarpur constituency in 2015. He is a two-time MLA from the seat. He was previously a member of the BJP and also a former councillor in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Singh had been actively taking stand against the BJP in connection with mass transfer of Delhi government school teachers, just days before joining the party.
Anand on the other hand had joined AAP in 2012. He resigned from the party in 2024 and joined the Bahujan Samaj Party in April this year. After joining BSP, the former Delhi minister had contested the Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi constituency.
Anand was elected as a member of the 7th Delhi assembly in 2020. He was also a part of the Committee on Government Undertakings.
He had resigned from AAP earlier this year after the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's arrest.
The other leaders who switched to the BJP included sitting MCD councillor Umed Singh Phogat, AAP leaders Ratnesh Gupta and Sachin Rai, and Raaj Kumar Anand's wife Veena Anand, a former legislator.
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'Probe Is Underway Against Him': Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj On Why Anand Joined BJP
Delhi Minister and AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj stated in a press conference today that Raaj Kumar Anand left AAP as he was unhappy with it.
"However, everyone knows that probe is underway against him and he will soon join the BJP. He claimed that allegations were made against him because he is a Dalit and he is not weak. I want to remind everyone that Dalits are not weak and it is because of them that the BJP was reduced to less than 250 seats (in Lok Sabha polls)," Bharadwaj said.