AAP hit hard in Uttarkhand as over 200 members press exit button
There appears to be no end to the Aam Aadmi Party's troubles. After the grassroots rebellion that had dented its electoral prospects in Punjab, the party is reeling from a mass exit of over 200 members, including senior leaders, in Uttarakhand. This has all but killed any chance the party had of making an impact in the upcoming assembly election in the hilly state.
Anoop Nautiyal, who left as AAP's state president, explained the mass resignation as a response to the party "losing interest" in contesting the assembly election. He alleged that AAP only does politicking in BJP-ruled states such as Punjab and Goa and is uninterested in highlighting the corrupt practices of Congress governments.
"The sense I got was that Arvind is not interested in Uttarakhand. In fact, he is interested only in BJP-ruled states. All those people who left their jobs to join the party are now regretting it," Nautiyal told Catch.
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After leaving AAP, Nautiyal and other senior leaders floated the Hamara Uttarakhand Jan Manch. The new outfit will not contest the election, only support like-minded independent candidates. "We are reaching out to all AAP members. We'll welcome then into HUM and even do a bit of hand-holding if they fight as independents," he said.
Nautiyal is the state convener of HUM while Ranbir Chaudhari, former AAP treasurer, has been named as the state president.
The rebellion broke out Thursday when nearly 50 AAP members resigned, alleging the party's central leadership was too busy with poll preparations in other states and was ignoring the "political developments" and corruption in Uttarakhand. Early this month, some 150 members had resigned from AAP and later joined the Congress.
"Since the March 18 incident when the Congress rebels tried to bring down the Harish Rawat government, Kejriwal has not even tweeted once about it," Nautiyal complained. "Usually in a day he tweets more than 5 times but in the last six months he hasn't tweeted once about Uttarakhand which tells us about his priorities."
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Nautilyal claimed a delegation of AAP leaders from Uttarakhand had recently visited Delhi to meet the central leadership, including Kejriwal, but the issues they raised went unaddressed.
Nautiyal has since uploaded a video to Facebook showing freshly-resigned AAP members taking potshots at the Delhi chief minister for betraying their trust, and regretting joining the party.
Along with Nautiyal and Ranbir Chaudhari, the other senior leaders who have left AAP include the president of its Dehradun district minority cell Abdul Rehman, Sahaspur president Ganesh Kala, Dehradun district secretary Sameer Mundepi, state spokesperson Kamal Devrari.
The AAP leadership has downplayed the mass resignation, claiming the leaders who have quit were upset for not getting tickets for the assembly election.
Also Read: Congress does a BJP in Uttarakhand: pushes for upper-caste quota
First published: 16 September 2016, 7:22 IST
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