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AAP suffers a huge blow in Uttarakhand, state unit chief joins BJP
Deepak Bali’s exit from the Uttarakhand AAP comes just six weeks after he was elevated by as chief of the state unit. Bali joined the BJP on Tuesday
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday suffered its second setback in less than a month in Uttarakhand with the exit of its state unit chief Deepak Bali who was elevated to the post on April 29 as part of the party’s overhaul after failing to win a single seat in the state elections.
Bali is the second top AAP leader to quit the party and join the BJP after the party’s presumptive chief minister Colonel Ajay Kothiyal (retired) switched sides.
In a brief resignation letter to AAP convener and Delhi chief minister - he also put it out on Twitter on Monday evening - Bali said he had been “uncomfortable” with how the party functioned.
Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and state president Madan Kaushik welcomed Bali into the party.
“Though Bali was in the AAP, he remained ideologically a nationalist… They (AAP) are not what they try to pretend to be. Bali himself experienced it in AAP,” Dhami said. The former AAP leader, a huge critic of the BJP till recently, was effusive in his praise for Dhami.
“The way chief minister Dhami took major decisions during his previous term, we knew that we won’t be able to stop the BJP from winning in the assembly elections,” said Bali, who headed AAP’s election campaign committee in Uttarakhand for the state elections, and was to lead efforts to build the party in his new role as state unit chief.
Like Ajay Kothiyal, Deepak Bali also contested the February elections but lost.
In all, the 70 candidates fielded by AAP could secure only 3.3% of the valid votes.
Disappointed with the party’s performance in the state elections, Arvind Kejriwal dissolved the state unit and the 13 district committees on April 29 and elevated Deepak Bali as the new state unit president.
Uttarakhand AAP unit’s Ashu Deori rebutted claims that Bali’s exit spells the end of the road for the party. “@pushkardhami is saying that AAP is finished in Uttarakhand. Dhami ji, party is not made by its chief but ordinary workers. As long as this woman (in a photo putting up AAP’s poster) is there, no one can finish AAP”.
Ajay Kothiyal quit AAP on May 18 and joined the BJP with about 700 supporters six days later, describing the change as a mid-course correction. On June 3, the AAP named new presidents in 11 districts in both Kumaon and Garhwal divisions and appointed four vice presidents with the mandate to improve the party’s performance in the upcoming local civic elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
