A full-blown war erupted in AAP today with Arvind Kejriwal camp and dissident leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav mounting a shrill attack against each other ahead of tomorrow's crucial National Council meet that is likely to decide continuance of the duo besides some other key issues.
A day after reconciliation talks collapsed, Bhushan and Yadav accused Kejriwal of stifling internal democracy, and claimed that he even threatened to float a new regional party with all its MLAs as he "cannot work with us".
The Kejriwal camp strongly rebutted the allegations by the dissident duo and accused the two founding members of working to ensure party's defeat in the Delhi polls, saying they had links with AAP's breakaway faction AVAM which had alleged that the the party got "shady" funds of Rs 2 crore last year.
The war of words came a day ahead of the party's National Executive, which is expected to take call on continuance of the two dissident leaders. However, many party leaders feel that it will be difficult for the Kejriwal supporters to remove them given the support enjoyed by Yadav and provisions in the party constitution.
Hours after Bhushan and Yadav held a press conference in which they slammed the party chief, Kejriwal's loyalists Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and Ashish Khaitan too addressed the media lauching a shrill counter-attack and claimed that the reconciliation talks were on track till 4 PM yesterday.
"The talks were on track. But suddenly something happened and they said they will no longer continue the negotiations. They must tell the country what happened," Khaitan said.
The three leaders from the Kejreiwal camp also produced a hand-written note which they claimed was written by Yadav apolosising for criticising Kejriwal.
Singh said the party had agreed on almost all demands made by the two leaders in a communication on March 17 in which Yadav and Bhushan had said they will resign if their demands were met.
The two leaders today said they will quit all "executive posts" if their five demands which included bringing the party under the ambit of the RTI Act, ordering probe by AAP's internal Lokpal into allegations of wrong doing and giving state units more autonomy, were met.
