‘Decisions flowing only from top…’: Citing self-respect, former AAP Goa chief Amit Palekar quits party

Palekar said he chose to step away "after much reflection", and "not in anger or haste, but in self-respect and clarity”.

Days after he was relieved as the president of the Aam Aadmi Party’s Goa unit, advocate Amit Palekar resigned on Monday.

In a letter to AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and Goa state prabhari Atishi, Palekar said he has tendered his resignation from the primary membership of the party. “I did not enter public life in pursuit of posts or positions. I joined the party believing in its promise of an alternative political culture – one anchored in transparency, internal democracy and respect for grassroots voices. Over time, however, it became increasingly difficult to reconcile these ideals with the way decisions are presently taken and communicated.”

“When dialogue and consultation are limited, and decisions flow only from the top, it does not weaken individuals, but strains institutions. For a movement that set out to redefine democratic functioning, this divergence has been deeply disheartening,” Palekar said.

“This decision has been taken keeping in mind my fellow workers, and most importantly, people of my St. Cruz constituency,” he said, adding that he stood firmly in his belief of a united Opposition for the interest of Goa and Goans.

Palekar was relieved from his position on December 24, days after the party’s dismal performance in the recently concluded zilla panchayat polls in the coastal state. The AAP, which decided to contest solo and opted against an alliance with the Congress and other Opposition parties, won a single seat in Colva by a slender margin.

The party’s state general secretary (organisation), Shrikrishna Parab, who was given the additional charge as president of AAP Goa, also resigned from the party on Monday.

After the zilla panchayat poll results, Palekar had told a regional news channel that an alliance with the like-minded Opposition parties was imperative to defeat the BJP.

“I know it could be something that the party may not like, but the party needs to understand Goa’s genetics,” Palekar had said. “They have tried to give an alternative politics, but somewhere, that model has failed. I am going to give my suggestions to the party. It is for the party to decide thereafter… what is the way ahead,” he said last month.

Palekar, a lawyer and a social activist, took a plunge into active politics in October 2021, when he joined the AAP, ending a decade-long association with the BJP that began during his college days. His mother was the former sarpanch of Merces village panchayat in North Goa and a state executive committee member of the BJP for over 25 years. His father was a schoolteacher and the former deputy sarpanch of Merces village panchayat.

Soon after joining the AAP, he was declared the party’s chief ministerial face for the Assembly polls in 2022 and contested for the first time from the St. Cruz constituency in North Goa, but lost to the BJP candidate. More than three months after the Assembly elections in 2022, Palekar was elevated to the post of party president in the state.