Ashish Khetan quits AAP, will return to law
NEWDELHI:Days after Ashutosh, a well-known face of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), resigned citing “very very personal reasons”, another senior party leader Ashish Khetan on Wednesday announced his decision to quit and return to practising law and writing.
Party functionaries said 46-year-old Khetan had sent his resignation to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on August 15, the day Ashutosh announced he was quitting the party.
Asked if Kejriwal had accepted their resignations, an advisor to the AAP convener said, “There is no such tradition or formality of accepting a resignation. Once tendered, a resignation means the person will not be active in the party’s activities.”
In April, Khetan had tendered his resignation from the vicechairperson’s post of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDDC), a planning body of the AAP government.
In a Facebook post, Khetan, who before joining Kejriwal in 2013 used to work as an investigative journalist, said on Wednesday that he wanted to “move away from party and electoral politics” for personal reasons.
“For the past two years, I have been plagued with self-doubt and the question of whether I wanted to continue in electoral politics. Early this year, I made my decision to quit active politics after much deliberation and in consultation with family and friends. However, since both the party
and the government were beset with a series of crises, I waited for an opportune time to formalise my decision. I had also informed the party leadership about my decision, on more than one occasion,” he wrote in his post.
After Ashutosh announced his resignation last week, he received a flurry of messages on social media from people ranging from Kejriwal to legislator Amanatullah Khan, who urged him not to leave.
But Khetan’s revelation did not evoke similar reactions from the party functionaries.
In fact, AAP refused to comment anything on record on the matter.
In his FB post, Khetan also said his “personal decision” to move away from the party, should not be viewed as a reflection on AAP.