Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav set to be evicted from AAP as Kejriwal allegedly vents in sting tape
While Kejriwal's camp is likely to move a resolution at the national council meeting to sack the duo for allegedly conspiring to replace him as AAP's national convener, Bhushan and Yadav claimed it would not be easy to throw them out.
An ugly face-off between the warring factions of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday signaled that the rift has reached the point of no return.
The groups levelled serious allegations against each other just a day before a crucial national council meeting, which is likely to oust dissident leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the party.
Meanwhile, as the no-holds-barred sparring goes on in the party, the Delhi government has remained in a state of complete paralysis for the past six weeks.
Providing more ammo to the dissidents, a fresh audio recording surfaced in which Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is allegedly threatening to form a new party after leaving AAP if required.
The recorded voice, purportedly of Kejriwal's, uses expletives against Bhushan and Yadav during a conversation with a volunteer from Varanasi.
"I did not come here for this fight. You can work with Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav. You have my best wishes. If required I am thinking of making a separate party and leave AAP. You all can run AAP...it has a great team."
"In the last four days they have done so much kaminapanti...We agreed to every demand. But now they say we were only bargaining. You are talking about our team of less capable men. May be our team is less capable but it has a clean heart. They are people with a dark heart," the audio recording says.
BLACKMAILING
The recording accuses Yadav and Bhushan of working for AAP's defeat in the 2015 assembly elections. "I will take my 66 MLAs and go my separate way. You all can run AAP. I have nothing to do with it. Why don't you go to them and talk? Your good team did not leave any stone unturned to defeat us in Delhi. Had they been in any other party, they would have been kicked out. They are kamina people of the first order," the chief minister allegedly said.
The Kejriwal camp described the tape as another conspiracy to malign him and claimed that private conversations of leaders were being recorded for the past nine months to blackmail the leadership.
DUO TO BE SACKED
While Kejriwal's camp is likely to move a resolution at the national council meeting to sack the duo for allegedly conspiring to replace him as AAP's national convener, Bhushan and Yadav claimed it would not be easy to throw them out. "They can remove us from the national executive but not from the party. If we are to be removed from the party, the matter has to be referred to the lokpal or the disciplinary committee," Bhushan said.
Accusing Kejriwal of running the party as per his wishes, he said the party convener had once said he could not be part of any institution where his writ does not run.
"I have told Kejriwal that he has many good qualities but two fatal shortcomings. First, he wants his decisions to be final? he cannot work with people who have independent thought, who can stand up to him. Second, he thinks his intentions are clear so everything is fine. I told him intentions alone are not enough. You should use the right means," Bhushan said.
Claiming that the reconciliation talks were only for securing their resignations, Yadav and Bhushan maintained they were ready to step down from all posts if their five demands were met. "We had sent a note to the party to list our demands...which is now being shown as our resignation letter.
We had said if our five demands are met, we will resign from all party posts," Yadav said about the March 17 note.
He also alleged that the party's constitution has been removed from AAP's official website.
The Kejriwal camp strongly rebutted the allegations and accused the two duo of working to ensure the party's defeat in the Delhi polls, saying they had links with AAP's breakaway faction AVAM that had alleged that the party got shady funds of Rs 2 crore last year.
Bhushan also slammed Kejriwal for allegedly trying to poach the Congress MLAs to form a government in Delhi last year.
"The national executive had rejected a proposal to form a government by taking Congress support. Despite that, Kejriwal wrote to the Lt Governor and asked him not to dissolve the assembly," he said.
Yadav alleged that a campaign was afoot to defame them ahead of Saturday's national council meeting. Demanding that the event be video-graphed, they said they have written to party national secretary Pankaj Gupta and listed issues for discussion at the meeting.