The war within Aam Aadmi Party escalated on Tuesday as senior party leaders Pankaj Gupta, Manish Sisodia (Delhi Deputy Chief Minister), Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai (Minister for Transport and Rural Development) issued an official statement on why the party needed to remove Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the parliamentary affairs committee.
The war within Aam Aadmi Party escalated on Tuesday as senior party leaders Pankaj Gupta, Manish Sisodia (Delhi Deputy Chief Minister), Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai (Minister for Transport and Rural Development) issued an official statement on why the party needed to remove Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the parliamentary affairs committee. On the other hand, Yadav said that AAP MLAs in Delhi were being coerced to sign a petition to remove him and Bhushan from the party for sabotaging it during Delhi elections.
Sources say the petition is headed by Karwal Nagar MLA– Kapil Mishra. However, Mishra denies any awareness of this petition. Sources say the party is shortlisting which MLAs will talk to the media and what they will say. The statement charges Bhushan with deliberately damaging AAP by telling people from other states to not campaign, telling prospective donors to not fund the party, of saying that he wanted the party to lose so as to "teach Arvind Kejriwal a lesson". It says that Yogendra Yadav repeatedly planted anti-party and anti-Kejriwal stories in the media.
An incensed senior leader said the party was forced to bring out such a statement as they were "flabbergasted" that Bhushan and Yadav spoke to the media after the March 4 national executive meet as there had been a unanimous decision to not go to the press. The party had to reach out to the media, the volunteers and the public before these two could do further "damage".
Some in the party disagree with this official statement. Another senior leader refuted it point by point, calling it "distorted truths". The leader said that Bhushan had initially campaigned for the party. He withdrew only his support from active campaigning till the matter of corrupt candidates was looked at by the party Lokpal. The leader said when Bhushan told party members that he didn't think the party deserved to win, he was only voicing private concerns. Never did he do any active damage to the party. Therefore, charges of him sabotaging the party are baseless.
The only small truth, according to this senior leader, was in Shanti Bhushan's statements of wanting Kejriwal removed as convenor. However, the party does not have the courage to take on such a seasoned political adversary, therefore is gunning for the son.
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