New Delhi:
Ousted members of AAP’s PAC Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan today rebutted the allegations of anti-party activities levelled against them by the party’s top brass and raised questions about the ‘unilateral decisions’ by AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal.
The duo, in a joint letter to volunteers, gave point-by point clarifications to all the allegations levelled against them by top brass of the AAP including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai.
They, however, hoped to work for party unity in future as it was an “opportunity to strengthen†AAP, saying the organisation was much bigger than any individual.
A set of emails relating to candidature selection by Bhushan, addressed to Kejriwal, Sisodia, Pankaj Gupta, Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, Sanjay Azad and Gopal Rai, were also released by the duo.
Yadav and Bhushan claimed that the rift between Kejriwal and them started after the Lok Sabha polls when the AAP chief favoured forming a government again in Delhi with the support of Congress which they opposed leading to a divison in the party.
“Kejriwal was adamant on formation of government. We opposed this and insisted that it would send a very wrong signal among the volunteers across the country, as Congress had recently been rejected by Delhi voters completely. However, Kejriwal went ahead with his efforts on formation of government and he continued till a month prior to elections,†reads the letter.
The leaders also rejected the allegation that they were releasing some very confidential communications, saying if they wanted they could have made public some secret papers which would have really harmed the party.
“It was also very strange that after the Lok Sabha elections, Sisodia, Sanjay (Singh) and Ashutosh demanded that all members of PAC should put in their papers so that Kejriwal could restructure new PAC. Even demands were made to disband national executive also. So it was pertinent to oppose those unconstitutional moves,†the letter says.
One of the emails, dated November 28, quotes Bhushan as saying that he will have to “disassociate†himself from the selection process and would be compelled to raise the issue on an “emergency basis†with the National Executive.
“I know that we had decided to leave the management of Delhi to Arvind, but sitting in the PAC to approve candidates, I cannot be a rubber stamp for arbitrary, non transparent and questionable decisions on candidate selection, without following even minimum norms of transparency and due diligence,†it said.
