Former Bharatiya Janta Party leader and ex-MLA from Abohar Arun Narang has finally opened up on why he quit the BJP.

Speaking with The Statesman Narang said, “What can be worse than the fact that the man I defeated in the 2017 Vidhan Sabha polls was made the Punjab state BJP president.” Narang was referring to Sunil Jakhar, whom he had defeated by a margin of 3,275 votes from Abohar in 2017. He adds, “Personally, I have nothing against his joining the BJP, but to forget the old guard and make him the chief is what I didn’t like.”

During the anti-farms law agitation, Narang’s clothes were torn before he was beaten up by the crowd protesting against the farms’ laws. He says, “I was asked to shout slogans against PM Modi. I told them, you can kill me but I won’t utter any word against the PM. And look what happened. I was humiliated but no one from the party came to ask for my well-being. The then president of the state unit Ashwani Sharma came, but it seemed like a formality.”

“I spent 40 years in this party but if this is how you get paid back, I do not think it is worth it,” Narang says adding that “That is when I decided to quit BJP.” He quit all party positions in July.

Narang adds, “I was sitting at home idle for about two months and that is when the Aam Aadmi Party AAP approached me and I joined the party.”

Narang says BJP stood for corruption-free and clean politics but now Punjab BJP is witnessing people joining from all quarters of the political spectrum, those in the Congress and Akali Dal all are being welcomed. How can we have those people at the helm and made to join the party who were rejected by the voters?

He says, “Delhi thinks that the old BJP workers are of no use or why else would they do such a massive Congressisation of BJP. People who had been in Congress for so many years are joining the party and being given Z security. What do they want to prove?”

About joining the AAP, he says, he is happy to join the party which is taking to task anyone who is corrupt, whether it is the people of their own party or those in the opposition. After all, they have walked the talk. Right from the bureaucrats who were close to them to others like ministers of their own party, they put them behind bars if they found something amiss referring to the case against former health minister Vijay Inder Singla.

At 66, whether, he still aspires to participate in electoral politics, he says, “Why not? AAP has given me a fresh lease of life after I had decided to sit at home, and also respect, I will definitely be open to fighting elections if the party so decides.”

Notably, the BJP was a force to reckon with in four Punjab districts when it had an alliance with SAD(B). In 2012, it won 19 seats while SAD won 48 to form a coalition in Punjab. The scenario was very similar in the 2007 Vidhan Sabha polls as well.

However, with the entry of many Congressmen into the saffron fold, BJP may have a lot of answering to be done to its old cadres, says Narang.