Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Amanatullah Khan has resigned from the party’s Political Affairs Committee late on Monday. However, Khan’s resignation seems to have done little to change his stand on the allegations that he had raised against fellow party leader Kumar Vishwas.
Speaking to the media, he said:
I stand by what I said. Kumar Vishwas is doing this at the behest of the BJP. I don’t regret what I said. Kumar Vishwas wants to split the party.
The resignation comes amid growing infighting within the party, and calls for expulsion of the Okhla MLA by senior AAP legislators. It has been learnt that few MLAs of the party had signed a letter, urging the top leadership of the party to expel him. A separate letter, with the same demand, has also been released by a Punjab MLA of the party.
Delhi Ministers Kapil Mishra, Imran Hussain, and Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri are among the signatories to the letter, a party source said.
The development comes days after Khan had alleged that Kumar Vishwas was trying to "usurp" the AAP and that he harbours ambitions of leading the party.
A senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity, alleged that apart from his recent attempt to drive a wedge between Arvind Kejriwal and Kumar Vishwas, Khan had also "worked against the party's interests" in the recently held municipal polls, where the AAP received a drubbing.
Earlier, Vishwas had differed with Kejriwal on the issue of EVMs. He had refused to attribute the AAP's recent poll upsets to alleged manipulation of EVMs and had instead stressed on the need to introspect.
(With PTI inputs.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)