AAP councillor arrested over gambling racket, BJP demands his expulsion

Bunty, a first-time councillor, was arrested along with six others from an office on Kadipur Road in Southwest Delhi, where the police claimed an illegal gambling operation was underway.

“The police arrested seven people from an office on Kadipur Road for being involved in a gambling operation on Saturday night. A tip-off was received about the operation,” a senior police officer said.

The AAP leader, however, is no stranger to controversy. In 2022, a video had surfaced online, showing him brandishing a revolver while dancing during his campaign for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections, which had led to the registration of a case under the Arms Act. Bunty had still won the elections, defeating the candidates of the BJP, the Congress and two Independents.

However, the latest case comes at a time when the AAP, which until recently had held power in both the Delhi Assembly and the MCD, is scrambling to regain its foothold in the city.

The BJP’s sweeping win in the Assembly elections earlier this year was followed by it reclaiming the MCD, which AAP had wrested in the 2022 civic polls after 15 years of BJP rule.

The ruling party used Bunty’s arrest to reinforce how AAP, which once promised a clean break from traditional politics, has since been mired in controversies.

Reacting to the arrest, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva questioned AAP’s stance on the matter and said, “Will Delhi AAP chief Saurabh Bharadwaj expel this gambling councillor, or will he once again dismiss it as a BJP conspiracy?”

Sachdeva said the incident reflected a “new face” of the party since it lost power in the MCD, and accused the AAP leaders of a pattern of criminality.

Seizing the opportunity to emphasise upon AAP’s recent string of scandals, Sachdeva said, “AAP leaders have always claimed to be part of a party that practices a different kind of politics, but Delhiites began seeing the party’s real face with leaders like fake degree-holder Minister Jitendra Tomar and controversial ration-card Minister Sandeep Kumar. The latest addition to that list is Councillor Joginder Singh Bunty, arrested for running a gambling racket.”

Even as Bharadwaj did not directly respond to the allegations against Bunty, the party referred to the arrest of the top guns from the party in the past.

“In the past decade, the BJP has created a situation where central government agencies and their police register false cases on an everyday basis against political adversaries. Today, it is difficult to comment on the merits of any allegation if it comes from an agency under the BJP’s control,” an AAP statement read.