Nine months on, Chandigarh unit of AAP headless

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, November 14

The city Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been without organisational structure and president for over nine months.

Though the central unit of the party announced a co-in-charge and 12 coordinators for the city wing, it has failed to decide its entire organisational structure, including president, even after nine months when the body was dissolved here.

Profiling to take month

Profiling of all party leaders will be done for a month. Their strengths will be identified, following which, the name of president will be announced and subsequently, those of office-bearers. — Dr Ahluwalia, new co-incharge

The party, which dissolved its organisational structure in January, continues to be headless even as the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are due next year. In the past few days, the names of new co-incharge SS Ahluwalia and 12 coordinators were announced.

Till January, Prem Garg was the city party president while Pardeep Chhabra and Kulwant Singh were co-in-charge. Senior leaders Chandermukhi, Vikram Pundhir and Vijaypal Singh were also part of the team. But, in the absence of a complete organisational structure, they have no specified role or position in the party. There have been reports of groupism and uncontrolled cadre in the party.

The party, which had bagged a maximum number of seats in the past MC elections, suffered a jolt when its councillor, Taruna Mehta, joined the Congress.

The party’s new co-incharge, Dr Ahluwalia, while talking to Chandigarh Tribune, said, “Profiling of all party leaders will be done for a month. Their strengths will be identified, following which, the name of president will be announced and subsequently, those of office-bearers.”

He said all 12 coordinators had been directed to hold ward meetings. Eleven of them have been given three wards each and one has been allocated two wards. “All coordinators are from Punjab, so there will be no question of bias. Local profiling of all new and old all party leaders/workers is being done by them,” he added. In the December 2021 elections, the AAP, which had contested the MC poll here for the first time, bagged 14 seats, while the ruling BJP could manage 12. The Congress remained third with eight seats. The SAD could win a single seat.

Though no party had reached the majority mark of 18 seats, it was an impressive start of the new entrant. However, it is being felt in political circles here that the party could not organisationally build up itself the way it should have, given its debut performance.

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