Less than five days before the Delhi Assembly elections, five Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs resigned from the primary membership of the party on Friday (Jan 31).
The MLAs who resigned are Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Rohit Kumar (Trilokpuri), Rajesh Rishi (Janakpuri), Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Pawan Sharma (Adarsh Nagar), and Bhawna Goud (Palam).
Bhupinder Singh Joon was the first AAP MLA to put in his papers.
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Palam MLA Bhawna Gaur, in a letter to the AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal said that she was quitting because she lost faith in him and the party.
"I hereby resign from the primary membership of the Aam Aadmi Party as I have lost faith in you and the party. Please accept the same," Bhawna Gaur and Madan Lal wrote in two separate letters.
All these MLAs have not been given a party ticket to contest the 2025 Delhi Assembly polls.
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Notably, Naresh Yadav was earlier the Mehrauli candidate but AAP in its fifth list of candidates for the Delhi election, announced Mahender Chaudhary as its Mehrauli candidate. Yadav was convicted by a Punjab court in a Quran desecration case in December and sentenced to two-year jail.
Yadav in his resignation letter said the AAP abandoned its founding principle of "honest politics."
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He further alleged that the party, instead of fulfilling its pledge to reduce corruption, had "become entangled in the swamp of corruption itself".
The Aam Aadmi Party is yet to issue an official statement regarding the resignations.
(With inputs from agencies)