Shanti backs Kejri as AAP chief now

Leaked note reveals earlier differences

Aam Aadmi Party founding member Shanti Bhushan took a U-turn on his apparent position earlier, saying there was no problem with Arvind Kejriwal continuing as the party’s national convenor.

Meanwhile, another letter, leaked on Tuesday but written before the internal rift within the AAP went public, indicates that he differed with Kejriwal over the party going national.

Retracting his disagreement over functioning of Kejriwal, Bhushan urged Yogendra Yadav and his son Prashant Bhushan to support the Chief Minister. “Arvind Kejriwal should continue as the all India convenor of AAP,” he told reporters on Tuesday. 

But senior AAP leader Ashutosh asked the AAP patron to come clean over the alleged conspiracy to oust Kejriwal as the national convenor. “Shanti Bhushan ji sud explain why did he say Arvind to be replaced with Yogendra during elections and after NE (national executive) meet. That is indiscipline,” he said on Twitter.

The AAP has called an urgent meeting of the National Executive on Wednesday to take “action” against Yadav and Prashant Bhushan for the alleged anti-party activities.

AAP leader Ashish Khetan also took to Twitter to launch a scathing attack on Bhushan. “Father son daughter trio of Shanti Prashant & Shalini wanted to have a vice-like grip on all party wings, from PAC (Political Affairs Committee) to policy committee to NE,” he said in a tweet.

Earlier differing from the Delhi CM’s professed stand of focusing on governance in Delhi, the founder member had asked members of the AAP’s national executive to establish the party as a robust all-India entity. 

“Having established this clean politics in Delhi, we have to think of taking this to all parts of the country to make a meaningful impact in national politics,” he said in the letter apparently written before the last national executive meeting on February 26.

“The Congress appears to be on its deathbed having become a prisoner of dynastic leadership and in my opinion, this time is ripe for AAP to take its place all over India as the secular alternative to the BJP,” the letter further said.