Bathinda: Finally, the two Ludhiana MLA brothers Simarjit Singh Bains and Balwinder Singh Bains on Sunday late evening joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
This was announced at a press conference here on Monday. Balwinder Singh Bains and Simarjit Singh Bains and AAP leaders Sanjay Singh and Gurpreet Ghuggi were present at the conference.
Talking about the alliance, Simarjit said he had respect for former Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, with whom they had floated the forum, Awaaz-e-Punjab.
Talking about the two main parties in the state, Simarjit said the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal were two sides of the same coin, and people had hope only from the AAP.
Talking about the Satluj-Yamuna Link canal issue, Sanjay Singh said the AAP was with Punjab on this and believed that Punjab had no extra water to give others.
Simarjit said that even after the AAP, which had its government in Delhi, they were of the view that Punjab should recover cost of sharing waters with Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.
Before reaching the point, the two held a detailed discussion with the AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal at Circuit House Bathinda.
It is pertinent to mention that Bains brothers, who had won independent in 2012, had recently got their political party registered with the Election Commission of India with a name ‘Lok Insaf Party’.
However,the two MLA brothers had recently clarified that the application for the registration of party was tendered months before the formation of Awaz-E-Punjab with also claiming that they would be an integral part of the Awaz-E-Punjab and take the further move only with the consensus of the founders of the forum, but the Sunday late evening development did shroud dark clouds over the fate of the forum of which former MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and former SAD MLA Pargat Singh were also the founder members.
The five seats and candidates
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has given five seats to the Lok Insaf Party of the Bains brothers as a result of the tie-up between the two parties.
The five Assembly seats where AAP has entered into an alliance with Bains brothers’ party are: Ludhiana’s Atam Nagar represented by Simarjeet Singh Bains, Ludhiana (South) represented by Balwinder Singh Bains, Ludhiana (Central) where they are likely to field Gurpreet Singh Khurana, a councillor of the party, and Ludhiana (North) where Randhir Singh Sibia, a councillor will be fielded.
During the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Simarjeet Bains who contested as an Independent got a large number of votes from the abovesaid Assembly segments.