Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 7

Dissident legislators of the Aam Aadmi Party's Punjab unit on Tuesday announced its eight-member ad-hoc Political Affairs Committee (PAC) for the state.

The committee comprises of Sukhpal Singh Khaira, former Leader of Opposition (MLA, Bholath); Kanwar Sandhu (MLA, Kharar); Nazar Singh Mansahia (MLA, Mansa); Jagdev Singh Kamalu (MLA, Maur); Master Baldev Singh (MLA, Jaiton); Pirmal Singh Khalsa (MLA, Bhadaur); Jagtar Singh Jagga Hissowal (MLA, Raikot); and Jai Krishan Rodi (MLA, Garhshankar).

Mansahia will be the member secretary of the ad-hoc committee, which will also have a total of eight special invitees, Sandhu said.

The eight include Gurpartap Singh Khushalpur (Gurdaspur), Daljit Singh Sadarpura (Dharamkot), NS Chahal, (Moga), Deepak Bansal (Bathinda), Paramjit Singh Sachdeva (Hoshiarpur), Pargat Singh Chaugawan (Amritsar rural), Suresh Sharma (Amritsar urban) and Karamjit Kaur (Mansa).

All the members and special invitees of the PAC will also be members of the proposed ad-hoc state executive committee, Sandhu said.

The PAC will monitor and supervise the reconstitution of the entire political structure of the state including the appointment of the state president/convenor, he added.

It will also set up the party structure at the district, Vidhan Sabha segments and block levels and supervise the district level party volunteer meetings “to infuse new spirit in the party and strengthen the state unit”.

“Once the state political structure is in place, the ad-hoc PAC and ad-hoc state executive will stand dissolved,” he said, adding that a new state executive and state PAC would then be constituted.

“This is the first step towards the reconstitution of the AAP in Punjab after the party volunteers convention at Bathinda,” he said.

Six resolutions were passed at the convention, including declaration of autonomy for the Punjab unit.

It had also scrapped the existing structure of the party in the state and announced that the process of forming a new structure would start soon.

The whole process will be in line with the concept of Swaraj as envisaged by AAP's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, Sandhu said.

On August 2, in an act of rebellion at Bathinda, a group of AAP legislators led by Khaira had declared the party's Punjab unit "autonomous" and "dissolved" its current organisational structure.

Disciplinary action

AAP’s Sangrur Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann said in his press briefing that the party could consider taking disciplinary action soon.

In statements that came soon after the rebels’ announcements, Mann, who was accompanied by MLA Meet Hayer—previously considered part of Khaira’s camp—said: “Khaira launched his son at a so-called volunteer convention where no volunteer spoke, where only leaders gave speeches”.

He claimed he would take a call on accepting the position of state convenor after meeting Arvind Kejriwal.

Hayer meanwhile was also critical of Khaira, calling him an opportunist and claiming his was a fight for “power alone, not for Punjab”.

“He’s playing with the emotions of people,” he said.

He also claimed that Sandhu had asked Kejriwal to make him leader of opposition, and said that he would “handle” Khaira. With inputs from PTI