AAP dissident leader Yogendra Yadav speaks at a press conference after the party ousted him, Prashant Bhushan (sitting on Yadav’s left) and two others yesterday.


IANS/New Delhi



Less than two months after it stormed to power in the national capital, the Aam Aadmi Party virtually split yesterday after it expelled four senior leaders, including Prashant Bushan and Yogendra Yadav, from its National Executive in a stormy meeting marred by chaos and protests.
Bhushan and Yadav, who are founding members of country’s youngest political party, reiterated that AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was a “dictator” and said they would approach courts against the “illegal” decision taken at the party’s national council meeting.
Hours after their ouster, Medha Patkar, a senior leader, announced in Mumbai that she was quitting the party, saying what happened in the meeting in New Delhi was disrespect to senior leaders and did not augur well for the AAP’s future.
Kejriwal was present in the meeting, but left before a crucial voting to expel the four senior leaders. The two others who were also sacked were Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha for siding with Bhushan and Yadav.
The meeting started at 10am with supporters of both camps shouting slogans and holding banners against each other. Yadav also held a protest outside the venue over the denial of entry to “genuine” members.
A national council member said many shouted slogans in favour of Yadav and Bhushan during the meeting. Many were reportedly forcibly removed from the meeting.
At the AAP’s National Council which was attended by 311 members, a resolution to oust Yadav, Bhushan, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha was tabled by Kejriwal’s confidant and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
AAP national secretary Pankaj Gupta told reporters that 247 members voted in favour of the proposal of removing the four members, while eight opposed including Delhi legislator Devender Sherawat.
A member who attended the meeting said that Kejriwal told the members to “be either with him or with them (Yadav, Bhushan).”
A visibly upset Bushan later said: “It is true that we can move the court, Election Commission or call another meeting of the national council. All options are open.”
“I have been telling him (Kejriwal) that he has dictatorial tendencies and he must curb them.
“I have failed. Instead of curbing these dictatorial tendencies, he has ruthlessly stifled any opposition,” he told reporters.
Yadav said that goons were also present at the meeting who beat their supporters.
AAP was quick to reject the charges as “baseless” with its leader Sanjay Singh saying that Yadav and Bhushan wanted to gain sympathy.
“No violence took place. No one was hit or injured,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Bhushan, a noted Supreme Court lawyer, claimed the AAP meeting was scripted. “Everything happened there in a planned manner. It seems that everything was scripted.”
“This is murder of democracy... There was no distinction between members and invitees. Manish Sisodia announced they have a petition signed by 160 people... There was no voting, no discussion,” said Yadav.
“There were many people who opposed it, they were not even given the chance. It is a total mockery of democracy.”
Yadav and Bhushan had five demands - transparency in the AAP, autonomy for local units, a Lokpal probe into graft charges against party members, AAP should come within the ambit of the right to information (RTI) act, and an end to secret ballot during election to key posts.
Ever since the AAP came to power in the national capital by winning 67 of 70 assembly seats, the party has been embroiled in an internal crisis that has pitted Bhushan and Yadav against Kejriwal, the party’s best known face.
Anand Kumar, a Jawaharlal Nehru University professor who was also ousted, however said they will not leave the party.
Giving his account of the events, Anand Kumar said: “Kejriwal said we caused trouble in the elections, and asked members to decide whether we should be ousted. But they did not let us speak.”
“We are not out of the party. We will neither leave nor break the party. This is a party of the workers,” he said.


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