Big jolt to Congress! Ex Punjab Minister Joginder Mann breaks 50-year ties with Congress, joins AAP

New Delhi, Jan 15: Ending the 50-year association with Congress, senior leader, and former minister Joginder Mann gave a jolt to the party and joined the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday. This comes a day after Joginder Mann handed in his resignation to the Congress, barely weeks ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections.

 

A leader of the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, Mann resigned from the post of chairman of Punjab Agro Industries Corporation on Friday. Mann was angry with the Congress government in Punjab for not taking any action against the perpetrators of the alleged multi-crore post-matric SC scholarship scam. He was also resentful of the ruling dispensation ignoring repeated demands to grant district status to Phagwara, his constituency.

 

In a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the three-time MLA from Phagwara, he said he had a dream that he would die as a Congressman. "But with Congress patronising the guilty of the post-matric scholarship scheme, my conscience doesn't allow me to stay here," he had said.

 

 

 

Welcoming Mann into the party fold, AAP leader and Punjab co-in-charge Raghav Chadha said the veteran politician’s induction will give a huge boost to the party in the state.

 

"Inspired by Arvind ji's vision, Punjab's former cabinet minister and three-time MLA Joginder Singh Mann ji joins AAP ending his 50-year-old association with Congress. He was presently chairman of Punjab Agro Industries Corp," said Raghav Chadha in a tweet.

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