80% office-bearers from AAP's Amritsar zone quit

Amritsar, Sep 6: Opening another front of rebellion in Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), 86 office-bearers of Amritsar zone resigned from the party's primary membership on Monday. They have quit citing "dictatorial behaviour" by party observers from outside Punjab.

The party office-bearers have also hinted at joining hands with the emerging fourth front, Awaaz-e-Punjab, led by former cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu.

"It was a difficult decision, but we decided to resign en masse from the primary membership of AAP," the party's Amritsar zone incharge Gurinder Singh Bajwa told TOI on Monday. He claimed that 80% members of AAP's Amritsar zone had resigned. He also claimed that members of seven more zones of Punjab would follow suit.

Those who resigned include in-charges of 36 circles, 34 sectors and 11 zones and five other office-bearers of party.

Bajwa said they would join AAP's former Punjab convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur's `Punjab Parivartan Yatra' beginning from Gurdaspur from Tuesday and seek suggestions from volunteers before taking a final call on the next course of action.

Asked whether he was keen to join Awaaz-e-Punjab, Bajwa replied, "This is a front of honest persons, and we want such publicly acceptable persons to come on a single platform for the betterment of Punjab. We would want Chhotepur to hold meeting with Sidhu after completion of his statewide march." Bajwa said AAP's leaders, who were opposing Chhotepur, never thought for once that there were thousands of party workers who were attached with them from the time of Anna Hazare's movement of 2011. "It pained old AAP volunteers to see party tickets being given to those persons who never demonstrated on roads, pasted posters and raised slogans," he said.

Meanwhile, AAP's Amritsar spokesperson Gurbhej Singh alleged, "Those who were opposing Delhi team's decision were ticket-seekers and their dream was to become MLAs by riding on AAP's popularity among Punjabis."