AAP leadership had no right to suspend me: Vijay Pratap

Suspended AAP legislator Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh on Monday said the party’s top leadership had no right to suspend him, especially after the Delhi Assembly poll where its top leaders couldn’t even retain their seats.

“They lost the right (to suspend me after the poll),” the Amritsar legislator said a day after his suspension from AAP for five years for alleged anti-party activities.

The MLA has been vocal against his party’s government in recent past. In the wake of the Amritsar spurious liquor tragedy, he had alleged that people involved in the illicit trade had become “a part of the regime and running the show”.

He had also questioned the government over the timing and the rationale behind the arrest of SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a disproportionate assets case.

In an interaction with a media portal, the MLA said the previous Congress government under Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had put Majithia in jail in a drug-related case on December 20, 2021.

He said after AAP came to power, Majithia was neither taken on remand nor a challan was presented in the court against him, resulting in his release on bail in a drug case on August 10, 2022.

“Now, he has been booked in a disproportionate assets case which does not stand against him as he comes from an affluent family,” he asserted. He claimed that AAP leaders were enjoying power in the state “due the respect he earned” during the 25 year-long service as an IPS.

He said the party had received a setback as several leaders deserted it when AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal sought an apology from Majithia in a defamation case after accusing him of being involved in a drug trade. The MLA said, after he joined AAP, they took him door to door to gain credibility and his posters were put up all over the places.

Punjab