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Punjab deputy CLP leader Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal quits party, joins AAP
MLA Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal was inducted into the ruling party by chief minister Bhagwant Mann. A two-time MLA from Chabbewal assembly constituency, he also resigned from the state assembly.
Chandigarh/Hoshiarpur: In a setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) deputy leader and MLA Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal on Friday resigned from the Congress and joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Chabbewal was inducted into the ruling party by chief minister Bhagwant Mann. A two-time MLA from Chabbewal assembly constituency, he also resigned from the state assembly.
The ruling AAP, which named its candidates for eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats on Thursday, is likely to field him from the Hoshiarpur reserved parliamentary seat. A prominent Dalit leader, Chabbewal had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Hoshiarpur, but lost to BJP’s Som Parkash by 48,530 votes.
The 54-year-old leader’s sudden switch took his party colleagues by a surprise as he had stood out in the protests against the AAP during the recently held budget session with his eye-catching acts.
Chabbewal carried a bale on his head, in a symbolic manner, one day to draw attention to the state’s mounting debt burden and then brought a chain into the state assembly on another day for the ruling party, saying that they needed it because the state government had failed to maintain law and order.
Senior Congress leaders made a last-minute bid to convince Chabbewal not to leave the party, but their efforts proved to be futile.
After his joining, Chabbewal said he is impressed with the pro-people policies of the AAP government, especially for the poor sections. He also praised the state government for following the ideals of Dr BR Ambedkar and Shaheed Bhagat Singh. On his recent protests against the AAP government, Chabbewal said he was in the Opposition at the time and did his duty. He also did not speak anything against the Congress and his former colleagues.
Earlier, in his one-line resignation to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Chabbewal said, “I hereby tender my resignation from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress with immediate effect.” He did not mention any reason for quitting the party.
In a post in Punjabi on X, the AAP state unit said the party has been further strengthened with the joining of Chabbewal. He is the second prominent Congress leader to join the AAP in a week. On Saturday, another Dalit leader and former Congress MLA from Bassi Pathana, Gurpreet Singh GP, joined the party. The AAP has fielded him from the Fatehgarh Sahib Lok Sabha constituency.
A few months ago, a vigilance inquiry was going on regarding the alleged distribution of 4,601 fake sanction letters ahead of 2022 assembly polls among Scheduled Caste beneficiaries for repair of houses for which grant was to be given under the Punjab Nirman Programme. Chabbewal had denied his involvement and had secured anticipatory bail from a local court.
Chabbewal, who had joined the Congress in 2009, was first elected to the assembly from Chabbewal in 2017 and then went on to win the seat again in February 2022. On April 10 that year, he was made the deputy leader of the CLP. Earlier, he was the chairperson of Congress’ Scheduled Caste (SC) wing in Punjab. A radiologist, he runs scanning centres in Hoshiarpur and adjoining areas.
