Six leaders from Congress, SP among 30 to join AAP at event held without permission

NOIDA: Even as there's turmoil in Congress-ruled Rajasthan over the disqualification of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot from the party, at least two local Gujjar leaders along with their 25 supporters from Gautam Budh Nagar joined hands with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaving the Congress on Friday expressing their anger towards the “mistreatment meted out to Pilot.”
At least six former leaders who have previously served the Samajwadi Party, Congress, Youth Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party at different positions joined the AAP on Friday in presence of the party’s state in-charge Sanjay Singh who inducted 30 persons into the party.
The AAP had organised a press conference for the induction of the new members in the outfit but had taken no permission for holding the event even as there were around 50 people present at the venue in Sector 29.
Zile Singh Bhati, who had earlier fought the elections for the Congress for Noida and Dadri vidhan sabhas back in 1991 and his son Hardeep Singh Bhati, who held the position of general secretary of Youth Congress Party previously, have both joined hands with the party over mistreatment meted out to Pilot. Both were primary members of the Congress.
Among others who quit the Congress and joined the party are former GB Nagar district vice president Rahul Chaudhary, former district president from Amroha Shailendra Singh Sheenu, former general secretary of Mathura Youth Congress Atul Bhardwaj. From the SP, Dhananjay Singh who has fought the nagar panchayat election from Jewar has joined the AAP.
In all, around 30 people joined the AAP on Friday during the press conference organised by the party’s UP incharge Sanjay Singh.
While there were around 50 people present at the venue, the police said that the party had taken no permission for the same.
DCP (Noida) Sankalp Sharma told TOI that since, section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed in the district, a permission was required for the event but none was taken by the party.
“We are initiating action in the matter,” he said.
AAP district president Bhupendra Jadoun however told TOI that they maintained social distancing during the press conference.
“Around 150 members of the local unit of the BJP had protested against the police for arrest of one of their members outside the Sector 24 police station. What action was taken? We maintained all social distancing with the few people who turned up at the event,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the event, Sanjay Singh attacked the UP government over low rate of Covid testing saying that testing of merely 25000 suspected patients was happening in a state with 24 crore population even as in neighbouring Delhi which has about 2.5 crore population, 23000 people were being tested everyday.
He said that testing numbers were almost next to nothing in UP and the Yogi government was following “no Corona testing, no Corona” formula, he said adding that at least two lakh people need to be tested everyday in UP.