NEW DELHI: A week after Ashutosh resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party, another journalist-turned-politician, Ashish Khetan, on Wednesday announced his decision to quit the party. “I am completely focused on my legal practice and not involved in active politics at the moment. Rest is all extrapolation,” Khetan tweeted.
Later, in a Facebook post, he sought to dispel rumours and speculations regarding his move and said he had received “love and respect from party”. “For the past two years, I have been plagued with self-doubt and the question of whether I wanted to continue in electoral politics. Early this year I made my decision to quit active politics after much deliberation and in consultation with family and close friends,” he wrote. He clarified that he did not announce his decision earlier because the party was beset with a series of crises and waited for an opportune time “to formalise his decision”.
He also added that his “personal decision” to move away from the party and electoral politics should not be viewed as a reflection on AAP. Khetan, who was brought into the AAP fold by former members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, was made vice-chairman of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Committee —an advisory body of the Delhi government — three years ago. But he resigned from the post in April this year, saying he was joining the legal profession.
Like Ashutosh, Khetan, too, claimed that the decision to quit politics was a personal one. But observes see the recent developments as a result of AAP being relegated to a one-man show. “The list of those who founded AAP or joined it with great idealism, but left, bitterly disillusioned, is long, very long. It was a moment of great hope. All destroyed by the unscrupulous ambition and lack of vision of 1 man. A case study of how an Organisation or movement can be destroyed,” tweeted Bhushan.
Delhi Congress leader Sharmishtha Mukherjee tweeted: “Within 6 years of forming the party, most of the old guards, founding members of AAP have left. Obviously something is terribly wrong within the party.”