Delhi: 15 councillors quit AAP, float new political party

The blow comes weeks after the AAP lost control over the municipal corporation and months after it lost the Assembly elections

In a major setback for the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), 15 party councillors on Saturday resigned and announced the formation of a new political outfit — Indraprastha Vikas Party, citing increasing internal discontent in the AAP and stalled development works in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

The AAP councillors who formed Indraprastha Vikas Party. (PTI)

The blow comes weeks after the AAP lost control over the municipal corporation, and months after it lost the Assembly elections to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after being in power with brute majority between 2015 to February 2025.

The 15 councillors include senior leader Mukesh Goel, former leader of the MCD house who has served as a municipal councillor for 25 years. In the February state polls, Goel had contested on an AAP ticket from Adarsh Nagar but lost to the BJP’s Raj Kumar Bhatia.

In a signed letter addressed to the AAP leadership, the 15 councillors alleged that “negligible coordination with the councillors led to the loss of power in MCD.”

“We all municipal councillors were elected on the tickets of AAP in 2022 but despite coming to power in the MCD, the top leadership of the party was incapable of smoothly running the MCD...Due to not fulfilling the promises made to the people, we are resigning from the primary membership of the party,” the letter, seen by HT, stated.

Besides Goel, the letter bore the signatures of Ushma Sharma, Ashok Pandey, Kamal Bharadwaj, and Devender Kumar, among others.

Refuting the allegations, AAP blamed the BJP for the resignations, and claimed that the councillors were offered ₹5 crore for the same.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the BJP has nothing to do with the defection of the AAP councillors because the councillors who left the AAP have clearly said that since the 2022 elections, the AAP leaders neither focused on running the municipal administration nor on maintaining coordination with them.

The development comes weeks after the BJP reclaimed control of MCD with Raja Iqbal Singh winning the mayoral election on April 25. The AAP, which had 110 councillors in the 250-member House at the time, had boycotted the elections.

To be sure, anti-defection laws are not applicable to municipal councillors.

“About 15 councillors have resigned from the primary membership of Aam Aadmi Party and formed a new party, Indraprastha Vikas Party. Despite being in power, we could not work for the service of the people of Delhi. We could not work due to internal conflicts,” Goel told media persons at a press conference as the councillors announced their resignation. These also included Hemchand Goel, Himani Jain, Runakshi Sharma, Usha Sharma, Ashok Pandey, Rakhi Yadav, Sahib Kumar, Rajesh Kumar, Manisha (single name), Suman Anil Rana, Dinesh (single name), Devender Kumar, Kamal Bharadwaj and Leena Kumar.

Goel told HT that the new political outfit’s aim is to focus on public welfare, development and the smooth functioning of MCD. He clarified that the party will remain confined to the municipal corporation only.

The remaining councillors said that no work could be done in the MCD for the last two-and-a-half years when the AAP was in power.

“We were in power, yet we did nothing... We have formed a new party because our ideology is to work for the development of Delhi... We will support the party that will work for the development of Delhi. So far, 15 councillors have resigned. More may join,” councillor Jain said.

AAP claimed that the BJP has been “trying to poach its councillors since the mayoral elections.”

“The BJP does not have a majority to form the standing committee or ward committees — so it is resorting to buying people. We had exposed the BJP’s horse-trading attempts during the Mayor election itself, so they are now staging a drama by pretending these defections are to another party,” the AAP said in a statement.

In response, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said, “The truth is that it is due to the collapse of the AAP’s 10 years of non-development, corruption, and scams that the councillors and MLAs, fed up with the party, chose to leave. Due to his obstinate approach, Arvind Kejriwal never allowed the formation of a standing committee in the municipal corporation and never engaged in dialogue with his councillors. As a result, even after more than half of the tenure having passed, AAP councillors have been unable to initiate any development work. Instead of blaming the BJP for their internal collapse, AAP leaders should introspect. These 15 councillors accusing their party leadership of neglect are not the first ones. Previously, more than 15 MLAs including three ministers, over 10 councillors, and one Rajya Sabha MP have accused Arvind Kejriwal of running the party without coordination and thereby leading it towards destruction.”

Delhi Congress’s president Devender Yadav said the AAP was paying a heavy price for corruption and misuse of power and was battling an existential crisis. “During the two-year tenure of the AAP in MCD, Delhi’s upkeep and maintenance suffered terrible setbacks with choked drains and sewers flooding at the first hint of rain, and Delhi becoming a city of garbage with the sanitation workers often resorting to strikes due to non-payment of their wages and arrears,” Yadav said.