–According to reports, two senior AAP leaders Ashutosh and Ashish Khetan are in touch with the Congress party. Recently, Ashutosh resigned from the party and Ashish Khetan has also announced that he will be no longer a part of active politics and also said that he will be completely focusing on his legal practice. AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has not accepted the resignation of Ashutosh but there are speculations that two leaders are not going back to AAP again. Both of them are now searching for new options.
Both, Ashish Khetan and Ashutosh, are journalists turned politicians. They vehemently supported the stand of the party on various issues on the television debates. They played a pivotal role in forming the media strategy of AAP. These two were the most known faces of AAP on television debates. Problems in AAP started emerging after the senior leaders were denied Rajya Sabha tickets. People like Ashutosh and Ashish who were there with AAP since its inception and are so much emotionally connected with AAP were completely overlooked for the Rajya Sabha tickets. There were many other problems when the endurance level crossed its limit Ashutosh resigned from the party and Ashish Khetan announced his exile from the active politics. It also came as a surprise for AAP as well, they never expected that conditions would exacerbate so much that its senior leaders would go to the extent of resigning.
This could create many serious problems for AAP. One by one it is losing its popular pillars of the party. AAP is already battling with many of the stalwart leaders including Kumar Vishwas, leaving. Many senior leaders have resigned from the party because of Arvind Kejriwal’s dictatorial attitude. Kejriwal had received much flak after the ousting of known faces such as Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from the party too. Kejriwal was dubbed as an authoritarian who had assumed dictatorial stature in the party, meaning there was no democracy left in the party which had promised to revolutionize and bring democracy in its true form to each citizen of the country.
However, AAP leaders joining with the Congress would be ironical because most of these leaders entered into politics riding on the anti-Congress wave and lambasting Congress for rampant corruption under its rule. This move will expose their hypocrisy and would establish the fact that these people entered into politics to not to bring any change but rather to grab political power. This move might end their political careers forever but still, they are willing to take the risk as they have no other options left. Ashutosh has already authored a long blog appreciating Rahul Gandhi’s no-confidence motion speech. According to a The Pioneer report, some Congress sources have claimed that some party leaders are informally in touch with Ashutosh but nothing is final, yet. A Congress leader said, “The Congress is the only option for someone like Ashutosh since he has been consistent in his criticism of the BJP.” He also added, “We are in touch with him.” On the other hand reportedly Khetan is also moving close to Congress. According to a The Pioneer report, Khetan is now reportedly associated with a law firm of senior Congress leader’s son.