Alka Lamba bids goodbye to AAP, rejoins Cong

As Delhi heads to Assembly polls within six months, AAP lost one more MLA on Friday with Alka Lamba announcing her resignation from the party on Twitter and joined Congress after a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the second time in three days.

This is home-coming for the 43-year-old leader, as she had worked for Congress for 20 years before joining AAP in 2013. Last month, the Chandni Chowk MLA had said that she had made up her mind about leaving the party and contesting the upcoming Assembly election as an Independent.

After her Tuesday meeting, Lamba once again visited Sonia at her residence to re-join Congress.

"The time has come to say 'Good Bye' to AAP and to resign from the primary membership of the party. The past 6years journey was a great learning for me. Thanks to all. Jai Hind," she tweeted in the morning.

"Arvind Kejriwal-ji, your spokespersons asked me as per your desire, with the full arrogance that the Party will accept my resignation even on Twitter. So please kindly accept my resignation from the primary membership of 'Aam Aadmi Party', which is now a 'Khas Aadmi Party'," she said. Earlier, AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj had said that AAP would accept her resignation even on Twitter.

Lamba, who entered politics during her student days through Congress' NSU(I), was at loggerheads with Kejriwal for some time and was removed from official WhatsApp group of the party.

She and the party leadership were at loggerheads for at least a year and had opposed the party move to pass a resolution in Delhi Assembly seeking withdrawal of the Bharat Ratna conferred on late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

During the recent Lok Sabha elections, she had refused to campaign for the party. She also refused to take part in Kejriwal's road show in Chandni Chowk after she was not allowed to be on the same vehicle in which Kejriwal was present.

After AAP's poor performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections, she had sought accountability from its national convener Kejriwal.

In an interview to DH during Lok Sabha election campaign, Lamba has said that chunk of AAP votes had shifted to Congress, which came second in vote share ahead of AAP.

In May, she told DH that differences between her and party leadership still remained and she was not able to speak to Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai for the past five months despite seeking time for a meeting more than once.