The “last round” of peace talks between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership and the rebel group in Punjab appears to be coming to naught. Even as AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday tried to play down the “conflict” by describing the dispute as “party’s internal matter”, his assertion of initiating requisite action against the rebels indicated his intent to take a tough stand on the issue.
Instead of resolving the prevailing crisis within the party’s state unit, Kejriwal’s visit has only deepened it further as he decided to maintain distance from the rebel group, led by its MLA Sukhpal Khaira.
On the other hand, Khaira minced no words to say that the AAp leadership and Kejriwal has given enough indications that they did not want the party to be united and resolve the internal conflict.
“It is the party's internal matter. Whatever action needs to be taken will be taken at the appropriate time by the party,” said Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal, when asked about the infighting, and the action to be taken against Khaira.
“AAP is like a family and in every family, there could be some differences. Whatever internal differences we have within Punjab unit, will be sorted out,” said Kejriwal, during a media interaction.
Kejriwal, during his visit to Chandigarh primarily aimed at forthcoming Haryana assembly election, held a closed-door meeting with the Punjab leaders, including the state unit president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Harpal Singh Cheema, party MLA and chief spokesperson Prof Baljinder Kaur, Faridkot MP Prof Sadhu Singh.
During the meeting, party’s candidates for Lok Sabha elections, whose names were recently announced, were also present. Besides Mann (Sangrur) and Prof Sadhu Singh (Faridkot) who will seek re-election from their respective seats, Dr Ravjot Singh (Hoshiarpur), Narinder Singh Shergill (Sri Anandpur Sahib), and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar) have been nominated by AAP for 2019 polls.
Khaira group, comprising eight dissident legislators who revolted against the party after he was unceremoniously removed from the post of the Leader of Opposition in July, was not invited for the meeting, that lasted for about an hour.
“We were not aware about Kejriwal’s meeting,” said Khaira on Friday.
Mann, after the meeting, told The Pioneer that only the issues concerning the state were the main point of discussion, besides party’s national convener Kejriwal wanted to meet the candidates the party has announced for parliamentary polls to wish them luck.
“No discussion regarding rebels was held. Our main focus was on the issues that the party wanted to take up, like drugs, farmers, teachers and employees for the elections, rather than talking about them,” said Mann.
However, it has been learnt that the talk on the prevailing crisis within the party was certainly held, and majority of leaders were unanimous for taking a tough stand against the rebels. Sources informed that the leaders, during the meeting, stressed that in place of holding peace talks with the rebels, the party should take a tough action against them to send across a strong message — to which Kejriwal reportedly agreed. Surprised over the announcement of candidates, Khaira had given AAP an ultimatum till November 7 to dissolve its current political affairs committee (PAC), and if not, the rebels would come up with a “new front”. He even did not rule out the possibility of the rebels declaring their own list.
Terming the decision as “unilateral”, Khaira had accused the leadership of pushing all the unity talks under the carpet, while at the same time maintaining that “doors are still open”.
The development came at a time when the representatives of both the factions held a detailed meeting, and agreed to join forces for the ensuing parliamentary elections for the party’s interest.
Days later, AAP’s state unit appoint 14 new office-bearers, including heads of three wings, three district presidents and eight constituency presidents — which Khaira dubbed as the “double standards and insincerity” of state leadership, while setting November 1 as deadline to scrap the appointments before holding the next round of talks. “We had earlier given them an ultimatum till November 1, which we are now extending till November 7. If the party does not agree to abide by the resolutions passed in Bathinda convention, we will start setting up our own structure in villages and towns,” Khaira had said.
Khaira, on Thursday, said that their group would still given the party leadership time till November 8.