Alka Lamba, who left Congress for AAP in 2013, says she had never strayed too far from the Congress' ideology.

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faced a fresh setback ahead of the upcoming Delhi assembly elections as it lost another of its MLAs — Alka Lamba — this time to the Congress. Lamba’s decision Friday comes barely two days after she met interim president Sonia Gandhi.

While a number of AAP MLAs have defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Lamba is the first legislator in the national capital to quit the party for Congress.

She has had a long stint with the Congress earlier before she resigned in 2013 to join the AAP — when Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption reached its peak.

“I have been away from the Congress for six years. But I was with it for 25. Rahulji has played a key role in my return to the Congress. Soniaji said he wanted youngsters like me to help rejuvenate the party. It is a ghar wapsi for me,” Lamba told ThePrint.

On joining the Congress at a time when it is facing a crisis and not the ruling party, Lamba said, “Legislators see benefit in joining the BJP. But I believe in striving for change and have never strayed too far from the Congress’ ideology,” she added.

After having lost the 2013 and 2015 assembly elections in Delhi, Congress made a resurgence in the national capital during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when it beat AAP for the second position in five constituencies out of seven.

With assembly elections in Delhi due in early 2020, AAP has gone into an overdrive to counter this trend by announcing freebies one after the other.

“I had asked (Arvind) Kejriwal for time. I would have liked to tell him the party’s flaws. Now he can figure them out himself. Kejriwal had promised change, but it is he who has changed. AAP will compromise on anything for seats and power,” Lamba added.

Also read: Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP got Rs 185 crore in donations since 2012 — 75% from outside Delhi

Lamba’s tussle with AAP

Lamba has been sidelined ever since a controversial resolution to withdraw the Bharat Ratna to late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, for his alleged involvement in the 1984 riots, made its way into the Delhi assembly in December last year.

She claimed to have been removed from AAP’s WhatsApp groups and consequently given the “cold shoulder” by its senior leadership.

The former AAP legislator was earlier a part of the Congress’ women’s wing and served the latter in several other capacities too. Her association with the Congress began in 1994 when as a 19-year-old second year B.Sc student, she had joined the party’s student wing — National Students’ Union of India (NSUI).

For AAP, this defection is a sign of its legislators contemplating to jump ship, made worse by the fact that Lamba has chosen to return to the Congress.

In 2013, corruption in the Congress party was the mainstay of AAP’s election campaign. However, having fallen short of the majority mark, the party decided to ally with Congress and formed the 49-day government with many crying foul as they believed AAP was built on ‘anti-Congressism’. To ally with the Congress went against its ethos.

Also read: Hooda, Tharoor, Scindia — Why Sonia Gandhi won’t crack the whip in Congress, yet

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