Kalkaji AAP MLA Manpreet Singh's son joins Congress

In a boost to Congress ahead of the February 8 Assembly polls, the son of AAP's sitting Kalkaji MLA Sardar Manpreet Singh joined the party here on Monday.

Avtar Singh joined the Congress at the Delhi party unit office here in the presence of city unit chief Subhash Chopra, and pledging support to his daughter and the party's Kalkaji candidate Shivani Chopra.

Along with Manpreet Singh, many other AAP leaders from Kalkaji also joined the Congress, including Murtza, chairman of the Minority Wing, Iqbal Siddique and Mohit Gill.

Prominent among those AAP leaders who joined the Congress party from Okhla, endorsing their support to Congress candidate Parvez Hashmi, were Kailash Kake, former ward in-charge of Ward 103-S, and Mohammad Bundu Malik.

Addressing the press conference, Subhash Chopra said: "Congress is contesting the Delhi Assembly elections on issues that affect the people and for the development of Delhi, but the BJP and Aam Aadmi Party were trying to polarise people on communal lines."

He said that he salutes the mothers and sisters, who never came out of their 'pardah', but were now sitting on protest at Shaheen Bagh in bone-chilling cold to protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and to uphold the sanctity of the Indian Constitution, but the BJP was communalising the issue.

Chopra also said that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal did not bother to meet the Shaheen Bagh women for one month and 10 days, and now he has woken up from his "Khumbakarni" sleep to shed crocodile tears.

He wondered at the double-speak and double face of the BJP and AAP and said that police entered the Jamia Millia Islamia campus without the permission of the Vice Chancellor and dragged out students from the library to beat them up.

"But the police remained mute spectators when goons attacked students of JNU, on the plea that the force will not enter the campus without the VC's permission," he said.

The Congress which ruled the city for 15 years from 1998 to 2013 is looking for a comeback in the February 8 polls. The party was reduced to nil in 2015 assembly polls, while the AAP won 67 seats and the BJP managed to win on three seats.

( With inputs from IANS )