Chandigarh:
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)'s internal trouble in Punjab, the only state where it won seats in its national election debut last year, escalated today as it expelled a senior leader. Daljit Singh, who had been openly criticising the party leadership for weeks, was shown the door for "anti-party activities".
Dr Singh was AAP's candidate in Amritsar during the national election and had headed the party's disciplinary committee in the state.
Dr Singh was issued a show cause notice on July 11 by the central leadership. In the notice, he was charged with damaging party's image. He was also accused of trying to bring disrepute to the senior party leadership by making false and malicious allegations.
In his reply, Dr Singh had denied the allegations of anti-party activities and attempts to weaken the party.
The rift has emerged just three months after AAP had a bitter and acrimonious parting with founder members Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav.
Sources say resentment has been simmering among AAP's Punjab leaders, who feel that leaders in Delhi are taking all the decisions on campaign strategy for assembly elections to be held in the state in two years. Daljit Singh is among those who had supported three dissident parliamentarians - Dharamvir Gandhi, Sadhu Singh and Harinder Singh Khalsa - who have been vocal about what they call high-handedness of the central leadership.
Sanjay Singh, the spokesperson of AAP in Delhi, said, "Everyone will be taken onboard."
Recently, AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hit back at these parliamentarians by asking them for a report on what they had done or achieved since their election last year.
AAP is worried that the ugly divide will have a negative impact on its attempts to build grassroots support ahead of the 2017 polls in a state that had voted its leaders to Parliament for the first time.
In April, barely two months after it swept the Delhi assembly election, AAP confronted a deep fissure within its leadership as Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav accused Mr Kejriwal of running the party in an autocratic manner. The party accused the two leaders of trying to unseat Mr Kejriwal and undermining its campaign in the Delhi elections. The party first dropped them from key committees before finally expelling them on April 20.