CHANDIGARH: The rift between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the defiant MLAs led by former Leader of Opposition (LoP) Sukhpal Khaira will further widen with Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Punjab affairs in-charge Manish Sisodia terming the convention being held in Bathinda on August 2 as anti-party activity and MLA Kanwar Sandhu saying they will go ahead with it.
Senior AAP leader and Kharar MLA, Kanwar Sandhu said in Chandigarh on Tuesday that besides all MLAs of the party in Punjab and various office bearers of the state unit, invitations had also been extended to party Convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and other office-bearers. Sandhu was joined in the briefing by another AAP senior leader, Gurpartap Singh Khushalpur from Gurdaspur.
Preparations for the Punjab AAP Volunteers Convention at Thermal Plant Sports Stadium in Bathinda on August 2 are in full swing.
The immediate trigger for the convention was the unceremonious removal of Khaira as LoP via a tweet, despite his stellar performance in and outside the Vidhan Sabha.
Sandhu said they wanted to ensure that the system of decisions being taken in Delhi without taking the Punjab unit into confidence is reversed. He recounted how first the then State Conveners, Sucha Singh Chhotepur and Gurpreet Singh Ghughi and now Khaira were removed unceremoniously.
He said that majority of MLAs feel that unless autonomy was granted to the Punjab unit to take its own decisions in key matters, justice to the people of the state can't be done. "We are not rubber stamps that decisions are taken and then thrust upon us, the result of which has been catastrophic for the party. This has resulted in derailing the Legislative Wing, which had been functioning exceptionally well.”
Discounting talks of the Convention being "anti-party" Sandhu said that such talk was a part of disinformation being spread to discredit them. "How can a convention of Punjab volunteers on Punjab's soil be anti-party," he asked?
The convention is an attempt to try and give a sense of direction to the volunteers who have been directionless, confused and demoralized for the last one year due to lack of a party structure in the state and certain wrong decisions by the Party High Command, Sandhu said. "The aim is to prevent the downward slide of the party, seen especially after the 2017 Vidhan Sabha polls during the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha and Shahkot bypolls," he added.