NEW DELHI: Commotion in the trouble-prone Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is far from over.
A day after the party shunted out two senior leaders from its highest decision making body, another senior leader broke the gag order on Thursday and came out with damaging details of the Wednesday meeting which decided to sack Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from its Political Affairs Committee (PAC).
“On 26th Feb night when members of the NE [national executive] went to meet him, Arvind [Kejriwal] conveyed that he will not be able to work as Convenor, if these two members were part of the PAC. That was the background of the NE on 4th March,” Gandhi said in his blog on Thursday.
Gandhi, a Mumbai-based businessman, attended the Wednesday meeting that lasted for nearly six hours through video conferencing and abstained from voting where Yadav and Bhushan duo was sacked from PAC by the majority vote.
Gandhi indirectly accused the Delhi chief minister Kejriwal of maintaining double standards by declaring that he was undeterred by threats of disciplinary action if he broke the gag order.
“Arvind used to say that when they were coming out of the joint draft committee meeting of the Lokpal in 2011, Kapil Sibal [then federal minister] used to ask them not to reveal anything to the outside world. Arvind used to answer that it was his primary duty to inform the nation about proceedings, as he was not a leader but a representative of the people. Truth and transparency was all that he had,” Gandhi said in his blog, addressed to AAP volunteers.
Gandhi further explained that he attended the national executive meeting in his capacity as representative of party volunteers and accepting the gag order would be an act of dishonesty of his part while demanding minutes of the Wednesday meeting to be made public.
According to Gandhi, Yadav told the meeting that he understood very well that Kejriwal did not want him and Bhushan to be part of the PAC and offered to quit the body. Yadav put forward two solutions before the meeting — that members of the PAC should be elected by the party volunteers in which both he and Bhushan would not put up their candidature; or that the PAC can continue to function in its present form and both of them would not attend any of the meetings in future.
“The meeting broke for some time and Manish [Sisodia] and others conferred with Delhi team of Ashish Khetan, Ashutosh, Dilip Pandey and others. After reassembling, Manish proposed a resolution that YY [Yogendra Yadav] and PB [Prashant Bhushan] be removed from the PAC and it was seconded by Sanjay Singh,” Gandhi said.
“I was taken aback by the resolution of removing them publicly, especially as they themselves were willing to leave. Also, this decision to sack them was against the overwhelming sentiments of volunteers from all over the world,” Gandhi added.
While decided to break the gag order and dared the party to take any action against him for telling the truth, Yadav himself tried to play down his removal from the party, saying Kejriwal has iconic status and that AAP is not a personality oriented party, while refusing to react to Gandhi’s revelations saying that AAP had decided that no member would speak in the media regarding the Wednesday meeting.
Yadav had said after his removal from PAC that he continues to be a member of AAP would do whatever work is assigned to him.
AAP is likely to appoint him as chief of its farmers’ cell while Bhushan would be appointed head of its legal cell, which their supporters feel is an exercise aimed at further isolating them in the party.
“In the past 24 hours, I’ve received many messages of support from AAP followers from the world over. I urge them to keep their faith in AAP ... The idea of AAP is bigger than any of us. Do not write off the Aam Aadmi Party,” Yadav said Thursday.
The sacking of Yadav and Bhushan had made AAP a subject of ridicule on social media, with some suggesting AAP stood for ‘Arvind Alone Party’ or ‘Absolute Arvind Party’.
