Opinion: Captain Vikram Batra's Mother On Quitting AAP
Kamal Kant Batra, 69, contested the national election this year from Himachal Pradesh as a candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party. In 1999, her son, Captain Vikram Batra, was killed in the Kargil War. He was 24. "Yeh dil maange more," he had declared famously, appropriating the Pepsi tagline at the time to convey the courage of the Indian soldier.)
As told to NDTV.com
I decided to resign from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on December 30, after joining it 10 months earlier.
I was deeply unsatisfied with the functioning and the organisational structure of AAP. It failed to appeal to me. The party has been a let-down at the state level here in Himachal, and even the national functioning of the party has not impressed me. I would not like to go into detail and criticise the party, but things are not 'proper'.
I'd been thinking about resigning for a while. In fact, my husband, on my behalf, attended the state and national level meetings of the party just a few days ago but we'd been completely inactive in party matters for the last two months.
When I joined the party, the Aam Aadmi Party had requested us to fight the elections, saying that we were reputed and well-known people, and they offered us a Lok Sabha ticket from Hamirpur. We'd thought the party would make a difference. I am happy that despite being new to the field of politics, we still stood third out of 10 candidates in the elections. But after the results, the organisational structure and the functioning of the party has gone downhill and left me disappointed.
After I said I would quit, so far I have not received any calls from senior members of the party - Arvind Kejriwal and others. But we have received some calls from our region and they have appealed to us to reconsider as they say that this would be a setback for the party in the state. I have not sent a written resignation to anyone yet, but will soon send my resignation to Arvind Kejriwalji by email or by post.
The first thing that always appealed to me about the Aam Aadmi Party was their stand against corruption. Second, they brought fresh faces to Indian politics: people from all backgrounds, rich and poor, across all levels. And the third thing that I like about this party is that they have highlighted the defects of the previous governments and parties.
As I mentioned before, the things I didn't like about AAP are their working, poor functioning and organisational chaos. Also, there is a lot of 'big bossism'. No one from the party, neither Mr Kejriwal nor any member of the national leadership has contacted us after the elections.
Right now there are no plans of joining any other party. Whether I want to continue in politics, only time will tell. But at present, I'm not in a mood to join any political party.
My advice to Mr Kejriwal would be that he should run his party in a completely democratic way. Every man in an organization is important. Everyone should be given due weightage and due regard.
And for Mr Modi, I feel that he is trying his best. He seems to be on the right track. My advice - he should walk the talk on all his promises, only then can our country progress.
Nationalism and patriotism are the two points that should always be kept in mind. He should definitely do more for the martyrs and their families, soldiers who put their life at stake for protecting our country.
