Baldev Singh, a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Punjab, today, quit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP.)
Mr. Singh, disappointed over the Party’s ‘autocratic functioning’ and ‘double standards,’ submitted his resignation letter to Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi and the AAP leader.
Mr. Singh, in his resignation letter, wrote, “I am pained to forward my resignation from the primary membership of AAP because the party has completely given up its basic ideology and principles.” He further added, “This arrogant and over confident attitude of the party hierarchy led to a crashing defeat of AAP in Punjab in the 2017 Assembly elections. Learning no lesson to fix accountability you never bothered to look into the reasons of this humiliating defeat and have once again handed over the reins of Punjab to outsiders.”
Mr. Singh also spoke about the removal of Sukhpal Khaira, the former Leader of Opposition Parties (LoP) of the AAP, without any fair discussion with the Party members and the MLAs of Punjab. Sukhpal Khaira was removed from the post of LoP, following which he resigned from the Party and launched his own party named Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP.)
After submitting his resignation letter, Mr. Singh is likely to join the PEP led by Sukhpal Khaira. However, the spokesperson of AAP is yet to accept Mr. Singh’s resignation letter and an official announcement is yet to be made.
Recently, H.S. Phoolka also resigned from the AAP. The reason cited by the MLA was the same as mentioned by Baldev Singh.
The loss of the MLAs will be a major setback for the AAP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, scheduled to be held between April and May this year.
Currently, the AAP has a total of 20 MLAs in the Punjab Assembly. In 2017, in the Assembly elections, the AAP won 20 seats out of the total 117 Assembly seats.