Setback for AAP in Haryana, campaign committee chief Ashok Tanwar quits party

New Delhi, January 18, dmanewsdesk: Former Congress MP cites Aam Aadmi Party aligning with Congress for elections as reason, expected to join BJP

In a setback for the Aam Aadmi Party in poll-bound Haryana, its state campaign committee chairman Ashok Tanwar quit the AAP on Thursday.

In his resignation letter to AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, Tanwar, a former Sirsa MP, said: “In view of the current political scenario and your alignment with the Indian National Congress, my ethics won’t allow me to continue as chairman, election campaign committee, Aam Aadmi Party, Haryana. Therefore, kindly accept my resignation from the primary membership and all other responsibilities of the Aam Aadmi Party.”

When contacted, Tanwar confirmed he had quit the AAP but did not comment on his next apparent move of joining the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Tanwar is a former Haryana Congress president who had resigned from the party in 2019. He had switched over to the Trinamool Congress in November 2021 after which he joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in April 2022.

There was speculation about him quitting the AAP as he had been distancing himself from party programmes for the past few weeks. He is likely to switch over to the BJP later this month.

According to sources close to Tanwar, he was disappointed after he was not nominated by the party for the Rajya Sabha seat and has been incommunicado for the past few weeks.

Tanwar was in Delhi and met BJP leaders recently. He also met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the sources said.

Earlier, AAP leaders Nirmal Singh and his daughter Chitra Sarwara had parted ways with the party and switched over to Congress in the presence of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the party’s Haryana in-charge Deepak Babaria in Delhi.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Congress candidate Ashok Tanwar had defeated INLD nominee Sita Ram by 35,499 votes from Sirsa (SC) seat. In the next parliamentary elections in 2014, INLD candidate Charanjeet Singh Rori defeated Tanwar from Sirsa by 1.15 lakh votes. Tanwar was defeated again in 2019 by BJP’s Sunita Duggal in Sirsa by over 3 lakh votes.

Source: Hindustan Times