Former Delhi social welfare minister Raaj Kumar Anand, who quit from both the Delhi cabinet and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) a month ago, officially joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Sunday. He is set to contest the New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency on a BSP ticket.
Last month, Anand resigned from the Delhi cabinet, citing inadequate representation of Dalits within the party. He alleged that the party was “mired in the quicksand of graft” and had no moral right to continue in government, and also accused it of “ignoring the Dalit community”.
After joining the BSP, Anand said, “I offer tributes to Baba Saheb Ambedkar. I feel that I have come back to my party.” The former Delhi minister has said he will file his nomination for the New Delhi parliamentary seat on Monday, the last day for filing nominations for the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on May 25.
BJP’s Bansuri Swaraj and AAP’s Somnath Bharti have already submitted their nominations from the constituency.
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Anand was previously under the scanner of the ED, which conducted searches at locations linked to him in November last year. This was part of a suspected money laundering case related to alleged evasion of Customs duty and “hawala payments to China”.
Representing the reserved seat of Patel Nagar, Anand was the first AAP minister to resign after Kejriwal’s arrest in a case related to excise policy on March 21.
In the 2019 general elections, the New Delhi constituency was won by Meenakshi Lekhi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She secured the seat by defeating Brijesh Goyal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Ajay Maken of the Indian National Congress (INC).