Talks for tie-up with AAP on: Bains

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 10

Independent legislator Simarjit Singh Bains-led Team Insaaf is likely to join hands with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the 2017 state Assembly elections. Confirming this today, Bains said talks with the AAP high command in Delhi were on.

Simarjit Bains and his brother Balwinder Bains, also an MLA, were earlier associate members of the Akali Dal in the state Assembly. In March 2014, they parted ways with the party. Later, the Bains brothers along with their supporters formed Team Insaaf.

Simarjit today said talks between Team Insaaf and AAP were moving in a “positive direction”. Terming AAP as a “like-minded party”, he said: “We do not want to split the votes of the like-minded voters.”

“It would be a common platform. It may take time but in the Assembly elections, we would not like other political parties to reap benefit from any split in the votes,” he said.

Bains, in the past, has been critical of the AAP state leadership. Last November, he spoke to media about the “crisis” in the AAP state leadership. Today, he said the “talks are on with the AAP leadership”. “I have not had any communication in this regard with AAP state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur.”