Adarsh Shastri joins Cong after denied ticket by AAP

Three days after being dropped by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from the Delhi Assembly candidates' list, sitting Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri, grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, joined the Congress here on Saturday.

He along with a large number of followers joined the party in the presence Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra and Delhi party in-charge P.C. Chacko. Welcoming him into the party-fold, Chopra said it was home-coming for Shastri whose roots were in the Congress.

Speaking to the media, Shastri accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of flouting all democratic norms to "sell" tickets for the February 8 Assembly polls for Rs 10-20 crore.

Slamming Kejriwal for belittling the AAP legislators, Shastri said, "When I left a high-paying job with Apple Inc to join the AAP I thought a honest man would herald clean politics. But my experiences in the five years have taught me otherwise."

The Dwarka MLA alleged "huge corruption" in the AAP ticket distribution for the municipal corporation elections and added, Kejriwal would be best remembered for spreading corruption in politics.

He said Kejriwal always refrained from commenting on important issues and his "stony silence" on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), violence against students at the Jamia Millia Islamia and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was baffling.

Charging Kejriwal with playing 'vote-bank politics', Shastri said he was an irresponsible Chief Minister and was least concerned about the plight of the people. Shastri was also unhappy for being replaced by an "outsider".

Shastri, who had won the Dwarka seat with 59.08 per cent votes in 2015, was replaced by Vinay Kumar Mishra, son of former Congress MP Mahabal Mishra. Vinay joined the AAP on Monday and was given the ticket on Tuesday.

The MLA claimed to have worked hard and transformed the constituency in the last five years.

While the AAP has named all 70 candidates, the Congress is yet to do so.IANS