Gahlot is the second sitting cabinet minister to quit AAP

GAHLOT IS A POPULAR JAT LEADER, AND OVER THE PAST YEAR, THERE HAVE BEEN MURMURS ABOUT HIS DISAFFECTION WITH THE AAP

- HT Correspondent

Najafgarh legislator Kailash Gahlot, who resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday afternoon, is the second senior cabinet minister to quit the party this year.

Earlier, on April 10, social welfare minister Raaj Kumar Anand had quit the AAP, alleging that he had joined the party to fight corruption, but its leaders had "ended up trapped in corruption". In addition, Anand's predecessor Rajendra Pal Gautam, who stepped down in November 2022 after his presence at a religious conversion event sparked a political controversy in Delhi, also quit the party this year, on September 6.

After Anand's resignation, the AAP had linked his quitting the party to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and pressure from federal agencies. "This (his resignation) proves that the BJP's target is to break the AAP. Raaj Kumar Anand was raided by the ED and all BJP leaders called him corrupt," AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had said at the time.

The party had also brushed off Gautam's resignation as a political decision.