AAP faces rebellion over ticket to Ashutosh

Tribune News Service 

Patiala, December 12

With the announcement of Ashutosh Joshi as the candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to contest the coming Assembly poll from the Rajpura seat, the party has come under line of fire from local volunteers, who had rebelled against his candidature.

Ashutosh (40) is now pitted against sitting Congress MLA Hardyal Kamboj, who is said to have a strong grip over the constituency, while the BJP is yet to announce its candidate from this seat.

However, before Joshi would slug it out against his political rivals, he is facing rebellion within the party with some of the party volunteers protesting against his ticket. Joshi has done masters in information technology from RMIT University, Australia. He was working as a marketing consultant with a private company before he entered into active politics after returning to the country a few months ago.

The party volunteers are alleging that he is a ‘parachute leader’, who has never remained associated with the ground work carried out by them. Neena Mittal, one of the ticket aspirants, whose name had been at the forefront before the ticket was announced, said the party should have given the ticket to any of the volunteers, who had been working in the constituency. “I am not saying that ticket should have been given to me. But it should have been given to a party worker,” she said.

Mittal, who even led a protest march against Joshi’s candidature along with party activists, including Gurpreet Singh Damoli, Sukhdev Singh Wajeedpur, Balwinder Kaur and others, said there was a strong resentment amongst the party cadre, who were expressing suspicion that money must have had exchanged hands in allotment of this Rajpura ticket.

“The only qualification that Joshi has is that he is a man with resources, who never had any association with the people of the constituency,” she said adding that the party leadership had been misled by the local leaders. She said in case one of the volunteers had been given the ticket, they would have supported the party in the elections.

She even alleged that Joshi’s father had been a staunch Congress supporter all his life and had left the party only a few days before his son was given the AAP ticket. “He has been planted by the Congress to weaken the party in Rajpura and if his ticket was not canceled, the rival party will succeed in its plans,” she said.

On the other hand, Ashutosh said it was only some of the volunteers who were protesting and he would soon reach out to them and strike a truce. Denying allegations leveled against him, he claimed that he was amongst the initial volunteers of the party in the area and had been associated with the Anna Hazare movement. “I have been actively working as a party volunteer since long and my name was shortlisted from amongst 61 applicants,” he said.