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In a first, the Aam Aadmi Party's top leaders on Tuesday issued a joint statement explaining the reasons to sack senior leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav from the party’s top decision-making body – the Political Affairs Committee (PAC).
The party said the two leaders, along with Shanti Bhushan, were “weakening the party” and working towards its defeat in the Delhi elections. The party charged Bhushan of encouraging volunteers not to campaign and donate for the AAP. It alleged Yadav of planting stories in the media to dent AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s image.
“It is unfortunate when all our volunteers were working hard, these senior leaders were making efforts to weaken the party and working towards party’s defeat in Delhi,” senior leaders Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai, Pankaj Gupta and Sanjay Singh said in a press statement.
The statement also revealed that 10 senior AAP leaders had visited Prashant and Shanti Bhushan three days continuously before the Delhi elections urging them not to make any absurd statement in the media.
“At a time when our leaders were supposed to campaign for the Delhi polls, they were busy appeasing them,” the AAP statement read.
In their statement, Sisodia, Rai, Gupta and Singh alleged Bhushan was limiting the AAP’s tally to 20-22 seats in the Delhi Assembly to ensure a leadership change.
“Around two weeks before the elections, Bhushan told Ashish Khetan he wanted the party’s tally (in the Delhi elections) be limited to 20-22 seats so that a defeat leads to a leadership change,” the party said.
When contacted, Bhushan told Business Standard, he will “issue an official statement at the appropriate time.”
The party said it has concrete proof to show how Yadav planted negative stories to damage AAP and ruin Kejriwal’s image.
Yadav posted a photo on microblogging site Twitter saying he was at Wardha (in Maharashtra) "away from all the madness."
This is the first official statement by senior AAP leaders after the controversy surrounding the removal of Yadav and Bhushan from the top posts erupted. The two leaders were removed from the PAC through a resolution passed in the party’s National Executive (NE) meeting held on March 4.
“We were not making the reasons to ouster Yadav, Bhushan public so that it doesn't dent their image. But after the meeting, their statements in the media portrayed as if the decisions were undemocratic. Looking at the atmosphere created in the media, we are issuing this statement,” the party said.
The statement also alleged both Prashant and Shanti Bhushan of openly supporting AAP Volunteer Action Manch (AVAM), an anti-party forum.
