Punjab AAP Chief Slams BJP Over Ex-MLAs Gathering

Chandigarh, Nov 2: The Aam Aadmi Party has moved to strip two of its former legislators of their assembly membership after expelling them for anti-party activities. The party will ask the Punjab Assembly Speaker to cancel the membership of Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra and Chetan Singh Jouramajra. Both MLAs have also resigned from the party.

In a separate development a day earlier, AAP MLAs from two Patiala district assembly seats had resigned. The party, however, said that both MLAs had been removed under its anti-party action rules.

Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, the Sanaur MLA, submitted his resignation from the AAP. He represents the Sanaur assembly seat in the Punjab Assembly and first won it in the 2022 Punjab Assembly polls. Reports indicate that his own government initiated action against him, after which he began criticising the party sharply before resigning.

Chetan Singh Jouramajra, the Samana MLA, also resigned from the party. He made the announcement on social media and said he had quit the primary membership of the Aam Aadmi Party. According to reports, his name did not appear in the party's first list of candidates released recently, prompting him to take this step.

Jouramajra had won the Samana seat by a heavy margin on an AAP ticket in the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections. He later served as a cabinet minister in the government led by Bhagwant Mann.

Punjab AAP president Aman Arora reacted to the situation through an X post. He stated that the party has always prioritised Punjab and that any leader who engaged in corruption or worked against the state's interests was acted against without hesitation and removed from the party.

Arora also wrote that the BJP was now gathering these expelled leaders. He said the BJP had no base of its own and cared nothing for the interests of Punjab. He asked what benefit Punjab could expect from a person who had fired at Punjab Police before fleeing and who had been jailed by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on rape charges. He said that the BJP wanted exactly such people, which showed it was empty in Punjab and had nothing to offer on its own.