Opinion: The curious case of prominent AAP members quitting the party

Within a week, two prominent Aam Aadmi Party leaders ended their association with the party. Ashutosh on August 14 took to Twitter to announce his resignation.

A week later, another prominent party figure Ashish Khetan shared on social media that he is taking up the legal profession, and hence will not get be involved in active politics for now.

However, AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tried to downplay both the resignations.

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According to party sources, Khetan, Ashutosh and Kumar Vishwas were upset with the AAP leadership for nominating businessman Sushil Gupta and chartered accountant ND Gupta for the vacant Rajya Sabha seats from Delhi in April, 2018.

Vishwas has got an additional reason to be upset about, and that is, his removal as Rajasthan incharge.

Several founding members have either quit the party or were expelled. Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were expelled from the party in 2015 after they claimed lack of transparency in the party.

Shazia Illmi, Captain G R Gopinath, Anjali Damania and Mayank Gandhi had quit hitting out at Kejriwal's style of working and lack of inner democracy in the party.

The departure of founding members who played a significant role in the 2011 anti-corruption movement under the leadership of Anna Hazare and also during AAP's inception, has raised doubts about Kejriwal's leadership skills.

Anna Hazare-Arvind Kejriwal split came wide open in 2012 when Kejriwal decided to take up the political path. Anna Hazare then claimed that Kejriwal had promised to remain dedicated to the social cause, but he went ahead to join politics. "Kejriwal has forgotten all principles in the pursuit of power," Hazare alleged.

Many have openly accused Kejriwal of destroying the social movement because of his political ambitions. They claimed that AAP was going against the principles on which the party was founded.

Instead of criticising the central government and prime minister Narendra Modi for everything that goes wrong, Kejriwal should focus on strengthening organisational structure of his own party. Lest we forget, because of his careless utterances, Kejriwal had to tender apology to Kapil Sibal, Nitin Gadkari and Punjab minister Biram Singh Majithia to settle the defamation cases filed by these individuals.

The tussle between the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, and Arvind Kejriwal is another factor which has caused discomfort among many party leaders. Finally, country's top court had to intervene to provide some closure to long-running political power tussle.

Furthermore, the Punjab Unit of the party has been divided into two factions. The crisis erupted after Bholath MLA Sukhbir Khaira was replaced as Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, with Harpal Singh Cheema.

Khaira's removal was announced by a Manish Sisodia through Twitter. This attitude, wherein the national leadership interferes in state activities in an 'autocratic' manner, instead of helping them iron out theirdifferences, should immediately be done away with.

Also, such important decision shouldn't be announced via social networking sites. The central leadership should be responsible and regardful while dealing with senior party leaders.

The exit of senior party leaders and rebellion by a group in its Punjab unit are not the only challenges that AAP central leadership faces ahead of 2019 election.

Another controversy erupted on Tuesday after AAP allegedly asked Atishi Marlena, who has been named candidate for 2019 election from East Delhi, to drop her 'Christian-sounding' surname. On Wednesday, Ashutosh too hinted at AAP resorting to caste politics to draw more votes.

The party, which has been critical of other political groups over caste-based politics, is itself doing something which is quite disappointing. Political parties should't be encouraging politics based on caste and religion and voters should be encouraged by the Election Commission to cast their vote based on candidate's views on positions on various issues.

It was nothing less than a miracle when a party, founded by social activists, gained momentum as a political entity. It was not a lone effort of Kejriwal but several others had put their sweat and time, left stable careers to be part of this revolution.

Kejriwal owes them. He should not delay, any further, introspecting his leadership skills. It's still not too late to try and win back Ashutosh, Khetan and Vishwas, before they, like other estranged party members, join other parties or movements.

He still has time to rebuild the party's crumbling structure. As AAP chief, Kejriwal should learn to respect views and opinions of party members.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)