AAP MLA From Dwarka Adarsh Shastri, Who Was Denied Ticket By Party, Joins Congress

Adarsh Shastri, MLA from Dwarka and the grandson of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who was dropped by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from the candidate list for the Delhi Assembly elections, joined the Congress in the presence of party leaders PC Chacko and Subhash Chopra on Saturday.

Shastri had won the Dwarka seat with 59.08 per cent votes in 2015.

He was removed from the AAP list and Vinay Kumar Mishra, a former Congress leader and son of former Congress MP Mahabal Mishra, has been given the chance to contest from the seat.

Vinay Mishra had joined the AAP on Monday and was given the ticket on Tuesday for the February 8 Assembly polls.

Earlier, sources close to Shastri told news agency IANS that the list came as a “surprise” to him as he was told by party chief Arvind Kejriwal that he should continue the party campaign.

“He was told that he will recontest. The list came as a shock. The MLA was not in the loop about the process,” a source said.

Also, he was unhappy for being replaced by an “outsider”. “It would have been better to replace him with another party member and not an outsider if the party considered him incompetent,” said the source news agency.

The MLA claimed he transformed the area and worked hard in the last five years for the constituency. While the AAP has named all 70 candidates, the Congress is likely to release its list on Saturday evening.