Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan out of AAP's top panel, Arvind Kejriwal's resignation rejected
"The National Executive passed a resolution and it has been decided that Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav will not serve the PAC any more. They will be given new responsibilities in the party," Kumar Vishwas said.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were removed from the party's highest decision-making body, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), on Wednesday.
Party spokesperson Kumar Vishwas made the announcement after a nearly six-hour meeting of the National Executive that followed a virtual war between the two leaders and loyalists of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
"The National Executive passed a resolution and it has been decided that Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav will not serve the PAC any more. They will be given new responsibilities in the party," he said.
He underlined that the Aam Aadmi Party remained a united force and would do all it can to meet the aspirations of the people of Delhi and the country.
"Everyone (in the party) will together take the party forward," he added.
In a show-down in the party's 21-member National Executive (NE), supporters of Kejriwal voted out Yadav and Bhushan by 11 to 8 votes. Kejriwal and Mayank Gandhi were not present at the meet.
Soon after the decision, veteran AAP leader Bhushan said, "Members of PAC have decided that Yogendra Yadav and me will no more be a part of the panel."
Bhushan, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, has been made the head of its legal cell.
Yadav, who has now been offered Maharashtra national convenor post, said he will work as a disciplined worker.
Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal's resignation as Aam Aadmi Party's national convenor has been rejected.
Before the meeting, Yadav said he would "neither split nor quit" the party. "Na todenge, na chhodenge. Sudhrenge aur sudharenge (We will neither break the party or leave. We will reform ourselves and the party," Yadav had said.
Yadav said that for the past three days, there have been many messages from party volunteers on social media asking them to stay united. "I am sure that in the evening we will be able to tell you that we have moved step forward and not backward," Yadav told reporters ahead of the meeting of the 21-member National Executive meeting.
A day after he said he was "deeply hurt" by the revolt within the party, Kejriwal offered to resign as the party's national convener moments before the meeting, which he also skipped.
There were conflicting versions on Kejriwal's offer to quit. In one, Kejriwal apparently wrote a letter on February 27 to party secretary Pankaj Gupta saying he wants to quit as the AAP convenor. In the other, Kejriwal sent a handwritten note Tuesday night saying he wants to resign from the post.
The differences in the top party leadership came out in the open barely a month after it made a sensational electoral comeback, sweeping 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly.