Delhi Mayor poll: Cross-voting shows AAP councillors’ frustration, says Cong leader Jitender Kochar

New Delhi, Nov 15 The alleged cross-voting by at least nine AAP councillors in the Delhi Mayor election is a clear sign of frustration and dissatisfaction of leaders of the ruling party, said former Leader of the House in MCD, Jitender Kochar of the Congress party.

Kochar, a two-time councillor, told IANS on Friday, “The AAP cadre at the ground level is disintegrating and the cross-voting in the mayor election on Thursday is an example of this.”

The corrupt practices of the AAP and an unsympathetic attitude of its top party leadership is forcing their leaders to go against the party whip, he said.

“Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers were arrested in corruption cases. Their real corrupt face has been exposed, and their party leaders are angry with them,” said Kochar.

The senior Congress leader said the dissatisfaction among AAP councillors was also visible in the recent elections for the MCD’s South Zone Chairman where five AAP councillors cross-voted to benefit the BJP candidate.

Kochar said the failure of the AAP government under former Chief Minister Kejriwal, the high-level of corruption and the stagnant development in Delhi have upset voters who want to bring back the Congress to power in the Assembly elections in February next year.

“Wherever we are going in the city as part of Delhi Nyay Yatra, people are sharing their anger with the AAP,” he said.

“When I joined the Yatra in Rajender Nagar and the Walled City, people shared their problems, exposing the incompetence of the AAP government,” Kochar said.

Kochar also said that the AAP government squandered the past 10 years in constant fights with Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena and the bureaucracy under Kejriwal and Chief Minister Atishi, without doing any constructive work.

“No development work has been carried out by the AAP government. No new hospital, school or college has been built. The level of development done by the Congress government under Sheila Dikshit is still remembered by Delhiites,” he said.

Kochar said the public response to the Delhi Nyay Yatra under Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav was a clear indication that people want a change after 11 years of corruption and misrule by the AAP government.

The first phase of the Yatra, which began on November 8, ended on Wednesday after covering 125 km across 15 Assembly constituencies in five days.