Mumbai: Two star women leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Maharashtra who worked hard to make the party a viable alternative in the political arena a year ago have resigned from their posts citing personal reasons.

Convener Anjali Damania had contested in the Lok Sabha elections and was defeated by BJP strongman Nitin Gadkari, while State Secretary Preeti Sharma Menon handled a whole gamut of meetings, campaigns and other party-related work, maintaining a good rapport with the media.

Though the AAP is not contesting in Maharashtra state assembly elections, their exit from active politics would be a big loss to the party.

The duo had expressed their unhappiness with the turn of events after the general elections. Damania had even given her resignation but later withdrew it. Now, both have resigned from the State Executive as they felt the need to give attention to their personal lives.

In an official statement, they said: “Anjali and I have been battling between our family life, our careers and our party responsibilities. Both of us could not cope up with the multitasking that we had to do. But, we had decided that we would not give up abruptly and would wait till the Mission Vistaar team would come to Maharashtra. Now that Prithvi Reddy and Atishi have taken up the state, it was a huge sigh of relief for us.”

The two women have conveyed to their friends from media that “the last three years have been an amazing journey where many of ‘aam’ folks have discovered the country as well as our own selves through the India Against Corruption movement and then through AAP. However, every adventure ends and our adventure too ends here.”

They will, however, continue to be a supporter of AAP and promise to be there to help the party in any way.

Thanking the media for their support during the past three years, they said, “We may have been at loggerheads often but overall we are grateful for your support to us personally, to AAP and to the nation. We request you to take this in the right spirit, we do not wish to give any reaction and sincerely request you to constructively put it before the people.

“Please understand that for us, everything is not politics. We are some genuine people who have our own set of problems.”