In a major setback to the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, 15 councillors have resigned from the party and announced the formation of a separate faction.
While news of 13 councillors resigning broke on Saturday afternoon, two more announced their exit hours later. The rebel leaders include Mukesh Goel, who was the Leader of the House for AAP in the MCD. On Saturday, the councillors, under the leadership of Goel, announced a new party called Indraprastha Vikas Party.
AAP councillors who resigned today
Hemchand Goel
Himani Jain
Runakshi Sharma
Usha Sharma
Ashok Pandey
Rakhi Yadav
Sahib Kumar
Rakesh Kumar Ladi
Manisha
Sumali Anil Rana
Dinesh
Mukesh Kumar Goel
Devinder Kumar
Leena Kumar
Kamal Bhardwaj
In the Delhi Assembly elections held in February this year, Goel contested on an AAP ticket from Adarsh Nagar but lost.
Before the last municipal elections, these leaders had left Congress to join the Aam Aadmi Party. Goel, who has served as a municipal councillor for 25 years, switched to the AAP from Congress in 2021.
The development comes days after the BJP reclaimed control of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) following its win in the civic polls. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had boycotted the election.
The fresh jolt to the party in Delhi comes after it was routed by the BJP in the Assembly polls earlier this year. Since then, the AAP has been plagued by internal strife.
To stem the discontent in the party, the AAP carried out an organisational shake-up in March, appointing former minister Saurabh Bharadwaj as the new president of its Delhi unit. Former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia was given charge of Punjab, which goes to the polls in two years.
Gopal Rai has been made AAP’s in-charge of Gujarat, while AAP’s national general secretary Sandeep Pathak has been given responsibility as the special in-charge of Chhattisgarh.