Buffeted by defections, Haryana AAP totters as ‘miffed’ Ashok Tanwar looks to jump ship

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been facing setbacks in Haryana in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls due in April-May, which will be followed by the state Assembly elections slated for October this year.

Days after ex-minister Nirmal Singh quit the AAP, there are indications now that another senior Haryana party leader may follow suit.

Some close aides of the state AAP campaign committee’s chairman Ashok Tanwar, 47, said that he was “upset” and may quit the party to join the ruling BJP soon.

Tanwar’s close associate Jagbir Jognakhera, Kurukshetra AAP district president, told The Indian Express that he (Jognakhera) and several other associates of Tanwar have already resigned from the party. Jognakhera said that “Tanwar has not been receiving due respect in the AAP,” alleging that “The AAP is in the hands of inexperienced people and workers are just numbers for them”.

While Tanwar was not available for comments, AAP sources said he has turned “incommunicado” for the past few days.

Dealing a blow to the AAP, its national joint secretary Nirmal Singh and his daughter and the party’s state vice-president Chitra Sarwara resigned on December 28, 2023, to return to the Congress.

State AAP president Sushil Gupta told The Indian Express that Tanwar remained a party leader and that the latter had not communicated any other decision to the party.

Former Congress leader Ashok Tanwar had joined the AAP in the presence of its supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in April 2022.

Tanwar, who belongs to the Dalit community, was once considered to be a rising star among young Congress leaders, and was close to Rahul Gandhi.

In February 2014, the Congress leadership appointed Tanwar as the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC)