A month after joining BJP, AAP's two Chandigarh councillors return to Kejriwal's party

Two AAP councillors from Chandigarh who had ditched Arvind Kejriwal's party to join the BJP ahead of mayoral polls returned to the party on Saturday.

Poonam Devi and Neha Musawat were among the three councillors who had joined the BJP last month.

After joining the BJP, Devi had praised PM Narendra Modi and called the AAP "a party of liars".

Interestingly after coming back to AAP, both councillors called their return "ghar wapsi".

The three AAP Chandigarh councillors — Punam Devi, Neha Musawat, and Gurcharan Kala — had joined the BJP in February in the presence of party National General Secretary Vinod Tawde, in Delhi.

AAP's Punjab unit shared the development on X, welcoming the two councillors.

"2 AAP councillors - Neha Musawat (Ward No. 19) & Poonam Kumari (Ward No. 16) have joined back the Aam Aadmi Party under the leadership of @RajbirGhumanAAP, OSD to Punjab CM and Dr S.S. Ahluwalia, Sah-Prabhari, AAP Chandigarh."

"Warm welcome to both the councillors on their 'ghar wapsi'," the AAP said.

The BJP had 14 councillors in the 35-member Chandigarh Municipality, before three AAP councillors dejected the party.

Last week, BJP had won both senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor after the Supreme Court in a landmark verdict nullified the earlier mayoral elections after returning officer Anil Masih was found defacing the ballots.

Notably, the votes of Devi and Musawat were the deciding factor in BJP achieving victory as its strength in municipal corporation went up from 14 to 17 after the entry of the three AAP councillors. The Congress and the AAP, who were fighting the election together, also had 17.

The BJP's Kuljeet Singh Sandhu was elected senior deputy mayor after bagging 19 votes as opposed to the 16 polled by the Congress' Gurpreet Gabim, and one vote had been declared invalid. Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher, who is a BJP member, has voting rights in the corporation and one of the councillors is from the Shiromani Akali Dal.

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