Anjali Damania, the anti-corruption campaigner who took on former BJP president Nitin Gadkari by leveling a series of allegations against him, has quit Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, or the AAP.
Ms Damania, in the resignation letter addressed to her AAP colleagues, refused to attribute any reasons behind her sudden decision. “Dear Colleagues, with a heavy heart I am ending my association with AAP. My greatest regards for Arvind, who is like an elder brother. All I want to request is that please do not have any conspiracy theories of my exit,” she wrote.
“I have never and will never compromise my values. I request the media to respect my privacy. Kindly excuse me, I do not wish to state anything except that I care a lot for my party and my best wishes are always with it,” she added.
A pathologist by profession, Ms Damania had contested against the former BJP president in Nagpur, but suffered a humiliating defeat. She could secure 69,081 votes only, and was pushed to the fourth spot. Mr Gadkari won from the constituency by an impressive 2.84 lakh votes after vanquishing former Union minister Vilas Muttemwar.
In 2012, Mr Kejriwal hurled charges of land-grab against Mr Gadkari, who is now the road transport and highways and shipping minister in the Narendra Modi government. The AAP leader claimed that the allegations were made on the basis of the information gathered by Ms Damania through a series of RTI queries.
Senior AAP leader Mayank Gandhi’s office in Mumbai confirmed the developments but declined to comment on the matter.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the AAP had put up candidates in all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state, but the party was wiped out.
Many of its prominent and high-profile candidates like Damania, Gandhi, Medha Patkar and Vijay Pandhare, among others, lost.
Now, the AAP is planning to contest the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections due in October this year, office bearers here indicated.
