Will ex-AAP leader Kailash Gahlot join the BJP?

New Delhi: Soon after Delhi minister Kailash Gahlot resigned from Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday months before assembly elections to be held in February, speculations were rife about his joining the BJP. 

In his resignation letter addressed to AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, Gahlot claimed the party was facing embarrassing and awkward controversies like Sheeshmahal, a reference to Kejriwal's former residence.

He cited rising pollution in Yamuna as one of the party's unfulfilled promises.

While the term ‘Sheeshmahal’ is used by AAP’s opponent BJP, inaction over rising pollution in Yamuna has been one of the prominent poll planks of the saffron party.

He enjoyed a cordial relationship with bureaucracy and Lt Governor V K Saxena. He was nominated by the LG to hoist the national flag on the occasion of Independence Day in the absence of Kejriwal, who was lodged in Tihar at that time.

Kejriwal had recommended Atishi's name for hoisting the tricolour but Saxena picked Gahlot, since he held the portfolio of Home.

Earlier this year in July, Aam Aadmi Party MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar and its former MLA Raj Kumar Anand joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Anand, who hails from Dalit community, was a minister in the city government led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and quit the party over the issue of corruption after the AAP's convener was arrested in the excise case.

Political analysts are of the view that Gahlot will be a right pick for the BJP as the party has not been able to create a strong line-up of leadership in its Delhi unit.

The 50-year-old MLA comes from a rural background and was a prominent Jat leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who twice won from the Najafgarh constituency in 2015 and 2020.

He won by a slender margin of 1,555 votes in 2015 but went on to consolidate it in 2020 as he boosted the victory margin to 6,231 votes and holds the distinction of winning from the seat twice in a row.

In 2017, he was inducted in the cabinet after the resignation of Kapil Mishra.

Gahlot, who completed his Bachelors and Master's degrees in Law from Delhi University, held crucial portfolios of Transport, Women and Child Development, Home and IT.

He is credited with introducing the Electric Vehicle Policy in Delhi and many other initiatives, including the introduction of free travel for women in buses and faceless services.

The Najafgarh MLA is seen as someone who stays away from political blame game and mudslinging, and focusses on his work.