Blaming the Aam Aadmi Party’s decision to join the Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) for its poor show in the recent Assembly polls, seven members of its Chhattisgarh unit, including the State president, resigned from the party on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.
Despite several rallies by its national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, AAP drew a blank in the 55 seats it contested in the Assembly polls held last November.
Komal Hupendi who was holding the State chief for nearly past five years said that the party did not fight strongly in Chhattisgarh because it joined the INDIA alliance – a group of 28 Opposition parties founded to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
“I want to reiterate that the manner in which Aam Aadmi Party came into existence by raising its voice against the Congress party… Today, Aam Aadmi Party is a constituent of the INDIA alliance [as is the Congress] and that’s the reason, the good performance that the Aam Aadmi Party could have delivered in the Assembly polls, because of the INDIA alliance we could not fight with all our might,” said Mr. Hupendi.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, this comes as a setback for the AAP which is currently discussing seat sharing arrangements for its INDIA bloc partners, mainly the Congress. Recently, senior party leader Gopal Rai said that the party wanted to contest elections in alliance with the Congress in five States. Chhattisgarh, however, wasn’t one of those States.
Earlier, Mr. Hupendi said that he and his party colleagues would not tolerate “deceit with the people of Chhattisgarh” but sidestepped the question of who was to be blamed for the same.
“Without blaming any leader or office bearers, I want to say that the hope and faith with which we joined the Aam Aadmi Party, I now feel that neither we managed to do justice to the last person in society for whom we joined politics nor are we able to do justice to our party workers who are working with complete dedication to the party,” said Mr. Hupendi, an ex government official who resigned from his job to take the political plunge in 2016.
Others to resign include Anand Prakash Miri (State Vice President), Vishal Kelkar (State Secretary) and the State presidents of its Youth, Scheduled Caste, Other Backward Classes, and Scheduled Tribe wings. They did not announce their next move, but are there are speculations about them joining the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
