Seeking to fix the loopholes in the party’s organisational structure, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal announced an overhaul of the party. launching ‘Mission Vistar’, he said all the State and district units shall be dissolved and rebuilt involving more youth, while the national council and national executives will be expanded. He even indicated adding more members to the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), the top decision making body of the AAP which has frequently been a centre of controversies erupting within the party. This assumes wider significance given the fact that a number of dissidents within the party have questioned the functioning of the PAC which has been controlled by some of the party’s prominent faces.
leaving aside the fissures and dissidence within the party, Kejriwal put up a brave front and announced that new people will be included in the ‘decision making bodies’ of AAP. This was an apparent attempt to reach out to the rebels who left the party in recent times. Kejriwal said that AAP leader Alok Aggarwal, Anil Trivedi, Ashish Khetan, Ashutosh, Bhagwat Mann, Rajmohan Gandhi, and some others will be included in the executive committee. The new National Executive will have 40 members instead of 30 while the PAC will have 14 members instead of nine.
At the end of the party’s three-day national executive, Kejriwal said having differences in a “democratic” party was quite normal and hoped that AAP will grow stronger. Trying to put behind his rift with senior leader Yogendra Yadav, Kejriwal said, “He is my elder brother. He has the right to scold me. I take his suggestions seriously. I am a human and when I make mistakes, elder brothers like Yogendra Yadav point it out to me.”
On Saturday, the AAP National Executive had rejected resignation of Yadav and Shazia Ilmi who had attacked Kejriwal for “lack of internal democracy” in the party. Yadav had quit from AAP PAC after charging Kejriwal with “falling prey to personality cult,” while Ilmi had resigned from the party saying a coterie surrounding the former Chief Minister was running the party.
“It’s time to restructure the party. The entire party will be reconstituted from booth to national level. New people will be picked. We will go to village and will bring more people in the party. We’ll call it Mission Vistar,” Kejriwal said. He said AAP performed well in lok Sabha elections, though it won only four seats.
“Has it ever happened that a small young party won four seats in its first electionIJ Despite a (Modi) wave, we did well,” he said. AAP had fielded over 430 candidates in lok Sabha polls out of which only four won.