Agree with AAP, but won’t join party, says Quraishi

Former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi has said that he is not going to join the AAP though he is broadly in agreement with the issues the party has flagged. The fledging outfit, he said has been reaching out to him through various means over the last one year – and even before that in its earlier avatar as India Against Corruption, but he is not interested in fighting elections.

“There have been informal suggestions for over a year now – ever since the inception of AAP – that I should join them. In fact even while I was in office during the Lokpal Movement, Anna had said that I should join the movement. I am sympathetic to many of the causes AAP is fighting against – criminalisation of politics, rising money power, use of communalism and casteism to win elections. But I told them that I do not find myself electorally inclined,” Quraishi told The Indian Express.

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Quraishi is one of upright former bureaucrats that the party has reached out to over the last few months. The AAP has also reached out to IAS officers Ashok Khemka in Haryana and Durgashakti Nagpal in UP – both of whom are at loggerheads with their respective state governments.