Eight Delhi MLAs join BJP day after quitting AAP ahead of Assembly polls

A day after resigning from the Aam Aadmi Party, eight Delhi MLAs joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday.

This comes less than a week before the Assembly elections in the national capital on February 5. The votes will be counted on February 8.

The legislators are Rohit Kumar Mehraulia, the outgoing MLA from Trilokpuri, Rajesh Rishi, who represents the Janakpuri seat, Kasturba Nagar MLA Madan Lal, Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav, Bijwasan MLA Bhupinder Singh Joon, Palam MLA Bhavna Gaur, Adarsh Nagar MLA Pawan Sharma and Madipur MLA Girish Soni.

The eight MLAs joined the BJP in the presence of the Hindutva party’s Delhi chief Virendra Sachdeva and National Vice-President Baijayant Panda.

It was a historic day as the MLAs had freed themselves of the “AAPda [disaster]”, Panda said, adding that he hoped Delhi too would be freed from it after the polls.

Prominent Personalities are joining BJP. @PandaJay @Virend_Sachdeva https://t.co/sl6uHjv4Dy

— BJP Delhi (@BJP4Delhi) February 1, 2025

Apart from Yadav, none of the other legislators who resigned were given a ticket by the Aam Aadmi Party to fight the upcoming polls.

On December 20, the party replaced Yadav with Mahender Chaudhary as its Mehrauli candidate. This came after Yadav was convicted in a Quran desecration case.

The case dates back to June 2016, when torn pages of the Quran were found in Punjab’s Malerkotla. The incident had triggered unrest and violence in the town.

In his resignation letter to…

Read more