Arvind Kejriwal
New Delhi, March 27: A sting operation that caught Arvind Kejriwal mouthing foul words today spiced up daylong factional tussles in the Aam Aadmi Party as it braced for a stormy national council meeting tomorrow and a possible split.
With party volunteers from both camps flooding into Delhi from across India, the threat of violence cannot be ruled out if the dissidents led by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are thrown out of the party, sources said.
While Kejriwal tried to stay aloof from the battle of news conferences and counter news conferences that marked the day, an audiotape where he uses abusive language against the rival faction was played out in TV channels in the evening.
Kejriwal is heard using two Hindi expletives during a phone conversation with a Yadav-Bhushan supporter and party member named Umesh, who has acknowledged he recorded and leaked the discussion.
In the tape - which the Kejriwal camp has accepted as authentic while playing the expletives down as a "human" lapse in a fit of pique - the chief minister is also heard threatening to walk out of the party with his 66 MLAs.
"They are (a crude word that roughly translates as 'mean') people. They tried their best to defeat the party in the Delhi elections," Kejriwal says in the tape in reply to Umesh's pleas for reconciliation.
"Despite that we agreed on reconciliation but they said they were bargaining. Had they been in some other party they would have been kicked on their backsides and thrown out."
"All of us speak like that when we are angry," party spokesperson Ashutosh later excused his boss.
"The larger issue is the conspiracy to record a private conversation and put it in the media ahead of the national council meeting. They want to split the party."
Kejriwal himself, however, has repeatedly exhorted his party members to use sting operations as a weapon.
Ashutosh also shrugged off Kejriwal's threat of quitting the party with his MLAs as an off-the-cuff remark.
"Let them (Yadav-Bhushan) run the party. I will walk out with my 67 (including himself) MLAs," Kejriwal says in the tape.
Sources said a decision on expelling Yadav, Bhushan and some others from the party could be taken at tomorrow's meeting, scheduled at a farmhouse on Delhi's outskirts.
The national council's more than 350 members will not be allowed to carry their mobile phones into the meeting, they added.
Today, the Yadav-Bhushan camp had fired the first salvo, holding a new conference to accuse Kejriwal of running the party like a dictator and claim they were being forced to quit the party.
The Kejriwal camp hit back with its own media meeting, accusing the rival group of rejecting reconciliation efforts because of its alleged determination to oust Kejriwal as party convener.
"We had conceded all their demands after hours of talks, and they had agreed to a reconciliation. Suddenly they changed their stance and said they were bargaining," party spokesperson Ashish Kehtan said.
"Which forces rejected the reconciliation talks? What is their real intention? They actually want Kejriwal out as party convener," Ashutosh added.
Earlier, Bhushan and Yadav had said that their conditions to bring the party back in line with its founding principles had not been met.
"Every time we raise these issues, we are told that we should first resign from the national executive and then all our demands would be met," Bhushan said.
No comments:
Post a Comment