In an apparent attempt to set its house in order in Punjab after the upheaval within the party over its supremo Arvind Kejriwal’s apology to SAD leader Bikram Majithia on drug charges, the Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday announced the names of its office bearers in Punjab.
“The appointments are done after the consultations with the senior leaders of the party and it has been done on the basis of duties performed by the volunteers to uplift the party in the past years,” said AAP’s Punjab unit co-president Dr Balbir Singh.
Notably, following Kejriwal’s apology from Majithia in a defamation case over drug allegations, the party’s state unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, and his co-president and Sunam MlA Aman Arora had put in their papers — which were later rejected by the party high command.
Besides the two, many senior leaders including the leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Sukhpal Khaira, Kharar MlA Kanwar Sandhu, among others raised the banner of revolt against their own party.
Subsequent to this, the party high command appointed Dr Balbir Singh as second co-president who has been virtually looking after the state unit’s work in the state since then.
later, the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia was also appointed state party affairs in-charge to give a much needed fillip to the party ahead 2019 lok Sabha polls.
Dr Balbir Singh, sharing the names in the list, said that the party will now start preparing for general elections due in 2019 and reach out to the grassroot level workers to engage them for the purpose.
“Due to the personal engagements of Gulshan Chhabra, the party has appointed senior party leader Jagtar Singh Sanghera as the state secretary. The former Deputy General Manager of Punjab Mandi Board Sanghera is associated with the party from the very beginning,” he said adding that Sanghera was earlier the convener of party’s NRI Cell and at present is the party spokesman.
Besides Sanghera, the party has appointed eight general secretaries including Dr Sanjiv Sharma, JP Singh, advocate Dinesh Chadha, ETO Harbhajan Singh, Dr Kanwaljit Singh, advocate Amarpal Singh, Sarbjot Singh Dhanjal, and Sukhjinder Singh Pannu.