As many as 86 office-bearers of the Aam Aadmi Party's Amritsar zone resigned from the outfit's primary membership on Monday, citing "dictatorial behaviour" of the party's observers from outside Punjab. AAP's Amritsar zone in-charge, Gurinder Singh Bajwa, said, "It was a difficult decision, but we decided to resign en masse from the primary membership of AAP," according to The Times of India.

Bajwa added that 80% of members of the party's Amritsar zone had quit and that members of seven more zones in Punjab will soon do the same, predicting more trouble for the party ahead of state Assembly elections in 2017. The office-bearers also seemed to indicate that they may join Navjot Singh Sidhu's newly floated party Aawaaz-e-Punjab. "This is a front of honest persons, and we want such publicly acceptable persons to come on a single platform for the betterment of Punjab," Bajwa said.

They will all join AAP's former Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chotepur's "Punjab Parivartan Yatra", which begins from Gurdaspur on Tuesday. The party's Amritsar zone in-charge said that AAP leaders who opposed Chhotepur did not realise the support he had of thousands of party workers since activist Anna Hazare's movement in 2011. Bajwa added that they will seek opinions from volunteers before deciding on their next move.

Chotepur was removed from the post of AAP's Punjab convener following allegations that he had taken a bribe from a party volunteer and promised a government office in return. Senior AAP leaders had demanded action against the veteran politician after he was purportedly seen in a video taking a packet of cash from a volunteer. Chotepur, however, denied the allegation, claiming that he had merely taken party funds. He was replaced by Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi.