As AAP officially gave a statement on Friday on the ongoing controversy over the unspoken rift between senior AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan’s and party convener Arvind Kejriwal, sources in the party came out and said that Yadav and Bhushan would be most definitely removed from the party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) in the national executive meeting on March 4.
“We will ask them to resign and if they don’t, we will go with the majority’s decision,” said a well-placed source in the party.
However, after the decision of holding a national executive meeting on Wednesday, Bhushan sent a request to national secretary Pankaj Gupta to push the meeting to the weekend since he won’t be able to attend it. Since the party has not reacted on the plea so far, chances are that the two leaders would be ousted irrespective of their presence due to majority’s decision, said sources.
Further, sources confirmed that the two leaders were not being given any additional responsibilities after being removed from the PAC. “The party has not yet taken a call on that but it is likely that they will not get anything. They will remain in the party nonetheless. If they want to resign, their resignations will be accepted,” said the source.
While sources suggested that Yadav wants to be made the national convener in place of Kejriwal, party spokespersons are saying that it is more of a clash of ideologies and not personalities. Senior leader Ashutosh called this a conflict between “ultra-leftism and neopolitics”.
However, sources claimed that Yadav and Bhushan have wanted to oust Kejriwal as national convener since
general elections in 2014. “Yadav and Bhushan didn’t even want AAP to win Delhi elections so that the loss can be used as an excuse to oust Kejriwal. There have been conversations where Bhushan has been heard saying that the party should not get more than 22 seats,” said a source.
Meanwhile, co-convener of the AAP Delhi unit Durgesh Pathak confirmed that the Standing Committee revealed that Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan wanted AAP to lose Delhi polls. He told agencies, “It was shocking to know this. The Standing Committee revealed that both the leaders wanted this so that they could remove Arvind Kejriwal as national convener.”
On Monday, after Dilip Pandey’s letter to Gupta subjected “complaint regarding anti-party activities by Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan and Shanti Bhushan” was leaked, a response from Yadav’s close sources also came out in the public with a letter defending point by point the allegations put on him. However, with the national executive meeting this week, it is likely that irrespective of these email exchanges, Yadav and Bhushan will be shown the door from the PAC.