New Delhi, March 26: The Aam Aadmi Party looked like any other party as it stared at a split this evening after a Twitter war between the Arvind Kejriwal camp and that of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan.
Kejriwal loyalists claimed that all peace efforts had failed because the rival faction was bent on dislodging Kejriwal as the face (convener) of the party - an allegation denied by Yadav and Bhushan.
Party insiders said Kejriwal had made it clear to his supporters that it would be impossible for him to run the party with Yadav and Bhushan in it.
"Kejriwal was ready to give up the post of national convener for them. But he said, 'We have fought many people but I can't fight against Yadav and Bhushan'," party leader Sanjay Singh said, signalling Kejriwal wanted the duo out of the party.
At Saturday's meeting of the party's national council, which has 350 members, the Kejriwal faction is likely to try and isolate Yadav and Bhushan.
The duo, too, appealed to the party's volunteers and leaders to make up their minds - a clear indication that they were ready for a split and were wooing party supporters based outside Delhi.
Yadav and Bhushan have already been thrown out of the party's top decision-making body, the political affairs committee. The infighting came out in the open this evening after a meeting of the committee.
"Talks failed. Prashant and Yogendra adamant on removal of Arvind from the chair of national convener," party spokesperson and known Kejriwal loyalist Ashutosh tweeted.
He said the committee had accepted the resignations of Yadav and Bhushan from all party posts, which he said they had offered in a letter.
When Yadav challenged them to produce the letter, Kejriwal loyalists said the duo had sent it on March 17, offering to resign if their demands were met. They added that all the demands had been met.
Yadav said the March 17 letter had not offered resignation, prompting Kejriwal loyalist Dilip Pandey to tweet: "YY PB (Yadav-Bhushan) denied that they never wrote a letter of demands, saying if accepted will step down. Still denying. Party already produced that letter."
Yadav shot back: "What is being passed off as 'resignation letter' is a note for internal negotiations. We said we will resign if 5 conditions were met."
He made the letter public and urged party volunteers to take a call. Bhushan too denied seeking Kejriwal's exit.
No comments:
Post a Comment