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AAP suspends 3 Malout leaders for ‘anti-party’ activities
After staging a protest outside cabinet minister and Malout MLA Dr Baljit Kaur’s residence by AAP workers alleging that local volunteers have been ignored, AAP has suspended three party leaders
After starting an indefinite protest outside cabinet minister and Malout MLA Dr Baljit Kaur’s residence by AAP workers alleging that local volunteers have been ignored, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has suspended three party leaders who are leading the sit-in.
Malout block president Rajeev Uppal and two secretaries of AAP’s Malout youth unit Sahil Monga and Gurmail Singh were suspended by the party’s Mukstar district president, Jagdev Singh Bham for “anti-party activities”.
Bham in a letter said the trio is holding a dharna by installing a tent outside the residence of the cabinet minister without any reason, which is damaging the party and the state government’s image.
“Senior leaders of the party and minister have repeatedly tried to make you understand and, moreover, no memorandum of demands has been submitted by you at any level. This indicates that you are holding a dharna on the direction of an opposition party without any specific reason to damage the party’s image,” he added.
On Sunday, a number of AAP workers started a sit-in protest outside the residence of Dr Baljit Kaur for an indefinite period. They are alleging that the minister is ignoring the party volunteers and bringing those people close to her who had left Congress and joined AAP during the assembly elections
Uppal said, “Dr Baljit Kaur is ignoring volunteers who are working for the party since 2014. The preference has been given to the people who recently joined the party. These are the same people who used to be supporters of then MLA Ajaib Singh Bhatti during the Congress government. Even party volunteers are not allowed to meet or talk to the minister directly. Even they have started a token system for meeting the minister,” he said.
Sahil said they don’t recognise this suspension order as it has been issued by the district president. “We were not appointed by him. Our appointments were issued from Chandigarh. We will accept it only after a state-level party office-bearer will issue any order,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Baljit called the protesting party leaders to come inside the house to talk but they refused to go inside and insisted to hold a meeting in front of other party workers at the protest site.
Dr Baljit said she has called them many times for talks to raise their demands, even senior party leaders also asked them to approach with their demands. “But they did not come and insisted on continuing their protest without any reason, so the party has taken disciplinary action against them,” she said, adding that people have said they are facing problems contacting her so they have released a phone number for the office started at her residence.
