On Wednesday (27th March), two Aam Aadmi Party leaders from Punjab – Sushil Kumar Rinku and Sheetal Angural joined the BJP in New Delhi. Rinku was the AAP MP from Jalandhar while Angural was the AAP MLA from the Jalandhar West assembly constituency. They were granted a certificate of primary membership of the party in the presence of state party President Sunil Jakhar and BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde.
As per reports, BJP may field both of them in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. According to sources, the party may field Sheetal Angural from Jalandhar and Sushil Rinku from Hoshiarpur.
Notably, AAP had already announced Rinku as their candidate from Jalandhar and several AAP leaders held talks to persuade him to stay in the party but the talks failed.
In the 2023 by-polls, Rinku secured victory from Jalandhar, Punjab, becoming a Lok Sabha MP with a lead of 58,691 votes. He was the only representative of AAP in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Rinku was earlier an MLA on Congress ticket but he joined AAP on 23rd April last year. A day later, he was announced as the AAP candidate for the Jalandhar parliamentary constituency for by-polls.
Yesterday (26th March), BJP inducted Congress’ Lok Sabha MP from Ludhiana and the grandson of ex-Punjab CM Beant Singh, Ravneet Singh Bittu. He represented the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab from 2009 to 2014. During the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Bittu defeated Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD) Dr Daljit Singh Cheema by 67,204 votes.
On the same day, state BJP President Sunil Jakhar put an end to reports about possible alliance between BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) stating that BJP will go sole in the state for Lok Sabha elections and will contest all 13 Lok Sabha seat in the state.