Actor-politician Gurpreet Singh Waraich, aka Gurpreet Ghuggi, resigned from the primary membership of Aam Aadmi Party two days after he was replaced by Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann as the Punjab convener.
“I cannot work under the leadership of a person who has been appointed on the condition that he will not drink (liquor),” he said.
“I am upset at the way I was removed... With a heavy heart, I resign from the primary membership of the AAP,” he told reporters at a press conference in Chandigarh.
Expressing his displeasure at choosing Mann to head the party in Punjab, he suggested there were others who could be better suited for the role, such as Sukhpal Khiara or Dharamvir Gandhi, the member of parliament from Patiala even though he remains suspended from the party.
“I must admit that Phoolka Saab was a better choice than Mann,” he added.
Ghuggi said that during his tenure as convener he led the party through a crisis and tried to bring in big leaders “who could have made AAP victorious in Punjab... but all of them were stopped from entering the party”.
Alleging that the central leadership of the party overlooked numerous complaints against the party observers stationed in Punjab in the run up to the assembly polls, he said the party had deviated from its ideology and principles.
His resignation has come at a time when the party is already fighting the fire over allegations by a former Delhi AAP minister that chief minister Kejriwal took a “bribe” of Rs 20 million.
