Divisions have surfaced in the Aam Admi Party’s Punjab unit after the announcement of senior Supreme Court lawyer H.S. Phoolka, who was the party’s candidate from Ludhiana, as the State convener. Nine other candidates who contested the recent Lok Sabha elections went to Delhi to protest before the central leadership.
Mr Phoolka’s name was announced by a group led by Harjot Singh Bains, who were part of the old executive committee, after meeting Mr. Kejriwal earlier this week. The rest of the party workers and some Lok Sabha candidates objected, saying the selection was undemocratic and they had not been consulted.
Party sources told The Hindu that following Mr. Kejriwal’s meeting with candidates and two newly elected MPs — Bhagwant Mann and Dharamvir Gandhi — on Friday evening, it has been decided that senior leader Manish Sisodia will visit Punjab in the first week of June to hold fresh elections/consultations with all the new as well as old workers and form a new State unit.
“The old executive panel had in any case become defunct because it was superseded by a campaign committee and then a screening committee to select candidates. Besides many of the people in the old panel did not campaign actively during the elections and it was a whole lot of new volunteers who joined hands to ensure the victory of four candidates from Punjab,” the sources said. These people must be accommodated and given responsibilities, so that the party could build on the support that it received in the elections, they added.
Having polled 25 per cent of the votes in the elections without a formal structure in the State, the AAP is acutely conscious that if it has to move forward and establish itself as a political force in the State, it will have to establish a proper structure down to the district level. It is clear that the old system of nominating office bearers informally will give way to a more democratic system and those who rushed to Delhi say that their grouse is not so much with Mr. Phoolka’s candidature as with the undemocratic manner in which his name was announced.
