Aam Aadmi Party leader Colonel (retired) Ajay Kothiyal, who was the chief ministerial candidate in the 2022 Uttarakhand Assembly elections, resigned on Wednesday.

“I have been a member of the Aam Aadmi Party from April 19, 2021, to May 18, 2022,” Kothiyal wrote in his resignation letter to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. “Keeping the feelings of ex-soldiers, ex para-military personnel, the elders, women, youths and the intellectuals, I am sending you my resignation.”

Kothiyal was named as the chief ministerial candidate by the party for the 2022 Uttarakhand Assembly elections on August 17. The retired colonel had received praise for his relief work during the 2013 Kedarnath flash floods in the state.

Advertisement

During the announcement, Kejriwal had then said the decision to pick the former army officer as the chief ministerial face was based on the feedback received from the people of the state.

However, the party could not manage to win any seats in the 70-member Assembly. The election was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had bagged 47 seats.

On Wednesday, AAP leader Jost Singh Bisht said that Kothiyal’s decision to quit the party was personal, according to PTI.

“He [Kothiyal] was among the senior leaders of the party,” Bisht said. “His decision to resign is personal as he has mentioned no reasons for it. Our good wishes for him for a bright future.”

Advertisement

Meanwhile, the former working president of the Aam Aadmi party’s Uttarakhand unit, Bhoopesh Upadhyay, also tendered his resignation.

Upadhyay, who had joined as a member on August 24, 2021, said he was resigning after he felt that the party’s ideology and working style were far from what it professes, according to PTI.

He also alleged that the party’s leadership in Uttarakhand was “imposed” and was trying to run the unit as “agents of East India Company” only to achieve their own goals.