With infighting taking an ugly shape, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday went in for a rejig by removing party’s internal lokpal Admiral (Retd) l Ramdas and Prashant Bhushan as the chief of its National Disciplinary Committee, a day after the latter and senior leader Yogendra Yadav were expelled from the National Executive. Meanwhile, another potential grudge against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal surfaced on Sunday wherein loyalist Kumar Vishwas questioned the trust of the Delhi CM a few months back when an unidentified person alleged Vishwas of accepting black money during his lok Sabha campaign in Amethi.
At an “emergency” NE meeting of the party held in the Capital on Sunday, the party removed Ramdas, a former Navy Chief, as its internal lokpal and set up a new lokpal panel, comprising former IPS officers N Dilip Kumar and Rakesh Sinha, besides also having educationist SP Verma as the third member. “All these people have given their consent to be part of the party’s lokpal panel,” said Pankaj Gupta, national secretary, AAP.
Voicing disappointment over being dropped as internal lokpal, Ramdas lashed out at the party leadership for not having the courtesy to inform him about the decision first. The AAP National Executive, while sacking Bhushan from the disciplinary committee, decided to replace him with a three-member panel headed by AAP leader from Gujarat Dinesh Waghela. The other members are Arvind Kejriwal loyalist Ashish Khetan and Pankaj Gupta.
The AAP body also announced a committee that will take care of the April 22 agitation against the land Acquisition Bill when the party plans to gherao Parliament on the issue. This committee comprises Ilyas Azmi, Prem Singh Pahadi, Yogesh Dahiya, Somendra Dhaka, Gurnam Singh and Kiran Vissa, which would decide on the details of the agitation programme.
Another committee headed by senior leader and PAC member Sanjay Singh was formed to look into expansion of the organisation in other States. “The AAP organisation in other States will write to us about its organisational status and political situation. They will communicate to us with their reports in 15 days,” Singh said.
On Ramdas, Singh said he was neither removed nor ousted. His tenure had ended and a new committee formed. An agitated Bhushan said the whole exercise of forming new panels was a “farce”. He said people who have levelled allegations against him and Yadav have been put in these committees. “So how can one expect them to be fairIJ” he asked.
The removal of Ramdas came a day after he was sent an SMS by Gupta, asking him not to attend the National Council meeting to avoid “confrontation”. AAP, on Sunday, also made public Kejriwal’s speech at the NC meet with the video being posted on YouTube and tweeted on AAP’s official Twitter handle. The fledgling party has been embroiled in internal strife soon after it romped home with a thumping majority in the Delhi Assembly polls, winning 67 of the 70 seats.