6 AAP councillors join BJP in Surat
The six councillors include Ashok Dhami (housing project), Kiran Khokhani (social welfare and recreational cultural committee), Ghanshyam Makwana (light and fire committee), Patel Nirali (health committee), Dharmendra Vavaliya (transport mobility committee) and Swati Kayda (law committee).
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In their resignation letters, which had gone viral on social media, the councillors stated that they have left the AAP "willingly" and nobody has "lured them or pressurised them".
(Express) Six AAP councillors of the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) have resigned from the party and joined the BJP in the presence of Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi and Education Minister Praful Panseriya at Shri Kamalam, the party’s headquarters, in Surat late Friday.
The six councillor include Ashok Dhami (housing project), Kiran Khokhani (social welfare and recreational cultural committee), Ghanshyam Makwana (light and fire committee), Patel Nirali (health committee), Dharmendra Vavaliya (transport mobility committee) and Advocate Swati Kayda (law committee). While Dhami, Khokhani and Nirali are from Ward No 5, Makwana and Vavaliya belong to Ward No 4, and Kayda is from Ward No 17.
In their resignation letters, which had gone viral on social media, the councillors stated that they have left the AAP “willingly” and nobody has “lured them or pressurised them”.
“We welcome all six AAP councillors to our party. They know they have taken the right decision by joining the BJP. Nobody has lured or pressurised them. They realised that AAP’s policies were becoming an obstacle in the development of their areas. They have joined the BJP to develop Surat city,” Sanghavi told The Indian Express.
The Gujarat AAP said the councillors exited the party after they were not given tickets in the December elections.
“In the Assembly elections, Ashok Dhami, Kiran Khokhani and Dharmendra Vavaliya had demanded tickets to contest. Their demands were not fulfilled. As a result, they have left the party. We are trying to find out the reasons of others (who left the party),” AAP state spokesperson Yogesh Jadvani said.
There are a total of 120 seats in SMC. While the BJP had won 94 of them, AAP, in a first, had won 26 in the 2021 civic elections. The Congress had failed to win even one seat. However, four councillors later defected to the BJP. With the latest round of resignations, AAP is now left with only 16 councillors in the civic body.
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