AAP leaders meet Sucha Singh Chhotepur, sacked as convener of Punjab unit two years ago, want him to help rebuild party.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has reached out to its former Punjab convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur almost two years after he was unceremoniously sacked from the post over allegations that he accepted a “bribe” and misappropriated funds collected in the party’ name.
Sources close to Chhotepur told ThePrint that some of the AAP’s Punjab leaders, including an MLA, met him Sunday evening, asking him to return and play a part in rebuilding the party, which is floundering amid dissent and a wave of desertions.
AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was in Punjab Sunday to attend a fund-raising event for martyrs organised by the Punjab Kesri group in Jalandhar.
“They told us they had come on behalf of the Delhi chief minister, who wants Chhotepur to let bygones be bygones and return to take control of the party,” said a source close to the Punjab leader. “However, Chhotepur was non-committal as he hasn’t forgotten the treatment that was meted out to him at Kejriwal’s behest. He first wants a public apology.”
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Chhotepur is an old political hand in Punjab, who began his career by winning a panchayat poll in his village of Chhotepur in 1975. He was the founder-convenor of the AAP’s Punjab unit but developed differences with the party’s Delhi leadership, including over his role in ticket distribution for the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections.
He was sacked as party convenor in August 2016 after a video surfaced purportedly showing him accepting money from a party worker seeking a ticket. Chhotepur accused the Delhi leadership of trying to fix him through the video even though, he said, it was aware he was collecting money on behalf of the party.
Once out of AAP, he formed the Aapna Punjab Party and fielded candidates in the assembly elections. His party, however, didn’t win a single seat, including in his own. On the 78 seats where Chhotepur’s party fielded candidates, it managed to get only 37,475 votes, with Chhotepur himself coming in fourth in Gurdaspur.
AAP in turmoil
AAP’s popularity has been on the wane in the only full state that it has a significant presence. The party had won in four seats in Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But due to infighting, it suspended two of them — Dharamavira Gandhi and Harinder Singh Khalsa — in 2015.
In the March 2017 assembly election, the party won 20 assembly seats and became the principal opposition party in Punjab.
But eight of its sitting MLAs have rallied around the former Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Singh Khaira, and have revolted against the party’s central leadership. The MLAs were allegedly angry over Kejriwal offering an unconditional apology to Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) leader Bikram Singh Majithia
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The party had campaigned heavily against Majithia, accusing him of being involved in the drug trade in the state. Majithia had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal.
The MLAs were also disgruntled when the party leadership did not consider any name from Punjab for the three Rajya Sabha seats it got this year.