Within hours of joining party, Haryana BJP expels ex-Delhi Minister

Chandigarh, Aug 11 (IANS) Within six hours after joining the party, the BJP's Haryana unit has expelled former Delhi Minister and AAP rebel Sandeep Kumar. 

He had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Saturday at the party office in Panchkula.

A statement by the Haryana wing of BJP said Kumar hid his antecedents, “but as soon as it came to notice, the Bharatiya Janata Party expelled Sandeep Kumar from its primary membership”.

In a letter by state General Secretary Surender Punia, it has been stated that Kumar will not be associated with the party in any form in the future.

Kumar is originally from Sonipat.

Apart from Kumar, state president of the Republican Party of India (Athawale) Ravi Sonu Kundli also joined the BJP.

In 2016, the Aam Aadmi Party suspended its MLA and former minister Kumar after a controversy over an ‘objectionable CD’ which showed him in a compromising position with a woman. In a complaint, the woman alleged that she was raped by Kumar when she had gone to his office in Outer Delhi’s Sultanpuri seeking help to obtain a ration card. She alleged that Kumar had offered her a spiked drink and, when she fell unconscious, she was taken to his house adjacent to the office and raped.

Kumar was subsequently arrested in 2016. A statement by the Assembly Speaker then said, “Sandeep Kumar, the respondent in this case, an elected member of the sixth Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, elected from Sultanpur Majra, Assembly Constituency No.10, has become subject to disqualification under Paragraph 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.” The Speaker announced the decision on a petition by the then AAP MLA and party spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj.

At that time Sandeep Kumar was with the Women and Child Welfare Minister in the Delhi government. Later in 2019, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel disqualified rebel Kumar under the anti-defection law. Kumar faced the action for supporting the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the Lok Sabha elections.

--IANS

vg/dpb