Yadav, Bhushan demand videography and secret ballot at NC meet

AAP founder members Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav have demanded that tomorrow's National Council meeting be video-recorded and in case of voting, provision for secret ballot be made.

They have also asked a neutral person to conduct the proceedings of the meeting.
AAP's internal war has come out in open as the dissident duo have challenged party chief Arvind Kejriwal. The party leadership appears all set to throw them out at its crucial National Council meeting tomorrow.

Bhushan, Yadav, Ajit Jha and Anand Kumar have written a letter, saying instead of calling a National Executive meeting ahead of the National Council meeting, the party decided the agenda in the Political Affairs Committee.

The letter says that despite repeated attempts, the party also did not furnish the list of the National Council members.

"We would also like to get videography of the meeting done by us. We hope and expect that this will be allowed. However, I have been told that you are planning to ask the members and invitees to the meeting to deposit their cellphones so that nobody can record the proceedings.

"This is a far cry from a party that is supposed to be wedded to transparency. The Congress and BJP even allow the media to be present in their National Council meetings," the letter said.

The leaders demanded that the "good offices" of the party's internal Lokpal, Admiral (retd) L Ramdas, should be used for conducting the proceedings of the meeting so that he can name an "appropriate" person to conduct the meet.

"In the light of the fact that there may be contested resolutions that may be brought up in the meeting, we demand that the vote on such contentious issues be done by way of secret ballot, so that each vote can be counted, and that only constitutionally eligible founder members of the NC be allowed to participate in any voting.

"All this needs to be done in order to avoid any unpleasant situation where members of the NC who are dissatisfied by the proceedings of the NC meeting can approach the Election Commission or the courts with regard to these matters."