Activist-turned-politician Anjali Damania quits AAP

Mumbai – Activist-turned-politician Anjali Damania, Aam Aadmi Party’s senior leader from Maharashtra, has quit the party, officials said here on Thursday.

“Dear colleagues, with a heavy heart, I am ending my association with AAP,” she said in her resignation message to top AAP office bearers here.

“My greatest regards for Arvind (Kejriwal), who is like an elder brother. All I want to request is that please do not have any conspiracy theories over my exit,” Damania said.

The AAP state convenor added she had never compromised her values and would never do so.

“I request the media to respect my privacy,” she said, while her phone remained switched off.

A former crusader against corruption in high places, Damania said she had nothing more to add except that she cared a lot for AAP and expressed her best wishes for it.

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.