Hundreds of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers today gathered at the residence of former party leader and activist Anjali Damania in suburban Santacruz requesting her to rejoin the political outfit.
Damania, however, refused to give in to their request saying there were no such plans as of now.
Over 300 volunteers from across the state assembled at the activist’s residence around 9 am and stayed there till 1 pm requesting her to return to the party which she left in 2015.
Simultaneously volunteers ran a hashtag #AAPneedsAnjali from the her residence that kept trending for few hours on micro-blogging site Twitter.
“You can see, Mumbai’s torrential rains too have not deterred AAP volunteers from reaching Damania’s house at 9 am in the morning. We volunteers make a sincere and humble request to our party leaders to convince Anjali Damania to come back to AAP,” an AAP volunteer said in a video message.
Another volunteer, Abhishek Bhat said, “It’s about morals and principles which the Aam Aadmi Party stands for. We volunteers want good leaders like Anjali Damania to fight the muscle and monetary might of corrupt politicians in Maharashtra.
“We request our Delhi leaders too to convince Damania to join AAP Maharashtra again.”
Deepak Dubey, another AAP volunteer said, “Ever since, Damania left AAP, she has never joined any other political outfit and she still remains with the AAP emotionally.”
However, Damania, denied any possibility of rejoining the party.
“It was an emotional moment to find my volunteers appealing to me to come back in the party. I respect their feelings and AAP was once very very close to my heart, but at the moment I am not thinking about it,” Damania told PTI.
Damania had quit AAP on March 12, 2015, alleging that party leadership had compromised on principles that were laid down during its formation.
Damania had left party in protest after Arvind Kejriwal allegedly tried to poach Congress MLAs to form the government in the national capital.