AAP replaces Kailash Gahlot with another Jat face in Delhi Cabinet

New Delhi: Raghuvinder Shokeen, the AAP legislator from Nangloi Jat, was inducted into the Delhi Cabinet on Monday, a day after another Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot resigned from the cabinet as well as the party, citing corruption issues.

Introducing Shokeen, 57, AAP leader Manish Sisodia said that the party convenor Arvind Kejriwal has hand-picked him to fill the vacancy created by Gahlot’s exit.

Shokeen’s entry into the Cabinet appears to be AAP’s attempt to keep Jat voters from rural Delhi happy by maintaining the community’s representation in Chief Minister Atishi’s team.

Shokeen, a civil engineer who has served as MCD councillor twice, thanked AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal for the opportunity to serve the public as a minister and attacked the BJP for its anti-Jat actions during the farmers’ protest and wrestlers’ agitation.

“The BJP has been dividing the Jat community. In Haryana, the BJP fought the election on the plank of Jat versus others,” he said, adding that the AAP always serves all communities.

Asked about Gahlot’s decision to join the BJP, Sisodia said, “If he wishes to work with the BJP while maintaining that dignity, we cannot say anything. It is his decision. Where he wants to contest from or which party he wants to stay in — every person has their own choice.”

In another development aimed at strengthening the AAP’s connect with rural and Jat voters, Kejriwal inducted a Congress leader Sumesh Shokeen into the party on Monday.

Kejriwal used the opportunity to highlight how voters in ‘Delhi Dehat’ did not feel being part of Delhi city under the previous Congress government. “After we came to power, we raised the crop compensation rate to Rs 20,000 per acre and fulfilled villagers’ demands by building sewage treatment plants, playgrounds, stadium, schools, mohalla clinics, hospital, and roads.”

Aiming to woo rural voters ahead of the Assembly elections in February, the former Delhi Chief Minister said, “Under our government, tremendous amount of development has been carried out in rural areas.”

Welcoming Sumesh Shokeen, Kejriwal said his induction into the party will add to AAP’s popularity in rural areas.

The AAP’s decisions to elevate a Jat MLA to the post of Delhi Cabinet Minister and inducting another into the party from the Congress appear to be a part of strategy to undo the damage caused by the exit of Gahlot, who joined the BJP on Monday.

In Delhi, Jats account for 5 per cent of the entire population, mainly spread across northern and western rural belts. Considering their significance in the electoral arena, about 10 per cent of legislators in the 70-member Delhi Assembly have always been from the community since 2008.

IANS