AAP removes Lamba from WhatsApp group again

New Delhi: AAP's disgruntled Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba on Saturday claimed that she has been removed again from the party's MLA WhatsApp group which includes party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Lamba claimed that she was removed from the group after praising Naveen Patnaik for winning a fifth term as chief minister of Odisha, a move which, she said, did not go down well with the AAP leadership.

Sharing screenshots of the WhatsApp group on Twitter, which purportedly shows that she was removed by AAP's North East Delhi candidate Dilip Pandey, she lashed out at Kejriwal and asked why she was being held responsible for the party's crushing loss in the Lok Sabha election. Pandey did not respond on the matter.

Hinting at Kejriwal, Lamba said action should be taken against those who took all the decisions sitting in a closed room. "I have always been telling the party what you (Kejriwal) are telling them now. I am sometimes added to the group, sometimes removed. It would have been better if a meeting was held to introspect, look at the shortcomings and move ahead," she said. The AAP suffered a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls and lost on all seven seats in Delhi with a margin of lakhs of votes.

This is the second time that Lamba has been dropped from the group. She was earlier removed in December 2018 when she raised objection to the party's resolution to revoke Rajiv Gandhi's Bharat Ratna. However, she was added before the campaigning of the Lok Sabha polls and was expected to campaign for the party.

But Lamba refused to campaign for the party and even refrained from participating in Kejriwal's roadshow after she was asked to walk behind his car during the show. In April, Lamba engaged in a bitter Twitter spat with AAP's Greater Kailash MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj, who had taunted her to resign from the party.

Following the spat, she addressed a large crowd outside Jama Masjid and said the party was repeatedly demanding her resignation. Lamba had alleged that the party leadership was "weakening" her and said she is being accused of attempting to switch over to the Congress. She had won the Chandni Chowk assembly seat in the 2013 Delhi elections. Before joining Kejriwal, Lamba was part of the Congress women's wing.