New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday dropped founder members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from party’s national council. The two apparently challenged party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s leadership.
A resolution to remove Bhushan and Yadav was passed with thumping majority at the National Council meeting. Reportedly, 23 votes were in favour of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav and over 200 were against them.
Yadav said, “It was scripted, it was a murder of democracy. Arvind Kejriwal had brought goondas in the National Council meet. He stood there pretending to be helpless. This was all pre-planned.”
Prashant Bhushan alleged that goons were brought to the meeting. “Our supporters were beaten up inside the meeting. The meeting was a total farce,” said Bhushan.
“Whatever Kejriwal was heard saying in a sting yesterday was played out in the entirety in today’s meeting,” added Bhushan.
The meeting went on for two hours, wherein Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal delivered a speech and left the meeting.
Yadav supporters Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha have also been removed from the National Executive.
The AAP National Council meeting was held at a resort in Kapashera this morning after talks between the warring factions failed.
Earlier, Yadav made the letter public on social media ahead of the NC meet, saying that he conveyed his “apologies” and sought Ramdas’s permission in doing so.
In the letter, Ramdas mentioned the SMS he had received from AAP General Secretary Pankaj Gupta, on which several reasons were stated by the party for its decision, as it was “party internal affair” and “as indicated earlier term of Lokpal need to be renewed in the next NE (National Executive meet)”.
Gupta also wrote that only MLAs and MPs have been invited apart from authorised NC members to the meeting and “no one else has been invited”. “So (we) request you to not come to the meeting to avoid any confrontation,” he wrote.
This came days after a section of AAP leaders expressed their displeasure over his continuance as the party ombudsman for his letter last month criticising the leadership.
In a letter to PAC, AAP’s highest decision making body, ahead of the National Executive meeting on February 26, Ramdas noted that there were two camps emerging within the top leadership and had asked the party to consider ‘one man, one post’ arrangement.
Miffed over the snub, Ramdas said he had visited from his village in Maharashtra to attend the meet, however, he would not attend the meet to “honour” the party’s request. “I am quite aware that the NC is a party internal affair. I am also aware that special invitees/observers have been invited to all bodies from PAC, to NEC to NC in the past,” he said.
The internal rift within the party had widened after the founding members of the party-Yadav and Bhushan-were accused of working for the party’s defeat during Delhi assembly polls last month.
Members supporting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal have accused them of anti-party activities while Yadav and Bhushan have alleged that the internal democracy of the party had been lost.
The party has also been rocked by a sting featuring an alleged telephonic conversation between Kejriwal and AAP leader Umesh Singh.
In their discussion, Kejriwal reportedly used strong language against Yadav and Bhushan and threatened to quit the AAP to launch a new party.
