AAP warming to Congress, says former leader SC Talwar

GURGAON: A senior AAP leader in Gurgaon who recently quit the party said that he took the step because of the outfit’s “growing proximity” to Congress and not over differences on portfolios.

SC Talwar, who was the convener of the party’s Lok Sabha committee in the district, said, “At a meeting in my house on March 20, we asked Yogendra Yadav if he met Rahul and Sonia Gandhi and he replied in the affirmative. Two years ago, Yadav had gone to Bawal during the farmers’ agitation as an emissary of chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He had no satisfactory answer when we asked why AAP doesn’t criticize Congress like BJP.”

He also accused Yadav, AAP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Gurgaon, of appointing only Yadavs to all major posts in teams formed by the party for the Lok Sabha elections.

Another local AAP leader, O P Kataria, angry with AAP’s decision to field Yudhvir Singh Khayalia from Hisar, accused Khayalia of being a part of land deals in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra was allegedly involved.

The party’s Gurgaon unit, however, was undeterred . “We are happy that troublemakers for the party have left. Some had serious criminal cases against them and would have been sacked had they not resigned,” said Amina Shervani, AAP’s media relations officer in Gurgaon.