Fissures have erupted in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with the release of its first list of candidates for Punjab Assembly polls scheduled for the early next year.
Already facing dissidence from half of its elected MPs, the party on Thursday found itself divided with its Punjab convenor and his supporters, who were left out from the list.
The impact of the discord can be gauged from the fact that the party released names of just 19 candidates against the proposed 26. But it could not contain the dissent as the Party Convener Suchcha Singh Chhotepur remained absent, when the first list of its candidates was announced in Chandigarh.
Although the party incharge of Punjab affairs, Sanjay Singh tried to put the matter under the carpet, saying that Chhotepur was busy with some personal function, sources said that Chhotepur had left for Delhi to register his protest to the senior leaders of the party.
The neglect of Chhotepur, is apparent as neither his name appeared in the first list, nor the names recommended by him found a place in the list. Chhotepur was a contender from the Fatehgarh Churian constituency, but the announcement of Gurvinder Singh Shampura’s name from constituency, has left Chhotepur high and dry.
The party on some other seats also overlooked the recommendations of Chhotepur, as from ludhiana (West), Chhotepur is said to have recommended Col. Jasjeet Singh and Hardeep Singh Kingra from Faridkot, but both the recommendations fell flat.
The dissenting leaders have alleged that the nepotism has been given precedence in the allocation of tickets. While Kingra is said to have decided to resign from the party, there was a strong rumour of Chhotepur’s filling the papers too, but Chhotepur, while keeping silent on his dissent, cleared by the evening that he has not resigned.
Sources say that the party was in a dilemma over the announcement of the list, as the list of the names finalised for the announcement, was apparently leaked before its announcement. The dissenting voices had started pouring in well before the leaders, and the party in an effort to pacify the dissenting voices, postponed the announcements of around 7 names, which had been finalized otherwise.
A strong resentment has been registered against the Mohali candidate Himmat Singh Shergill's name, as the 22 contenders from the
constituency have passed a resolution against the announcement.
The resolution prepared on Wednesday says that Shergill did not even attend meeting of the party activists called by Youth president Harjot Singh Bains to shortlist candidates.
Moreover, he has rarely visited Mohali since the lok Sabha election when he was the candidate from Anandpur Sahib, of which Mohali is a part. Mohali’s left out contenders have called a meeting on Saturday to decide their further course of action.