AAP groups wait for National Council meeting

Further crackdown on rebels likely

Warring factions of the AAP are waiting for party National Executive meeting, which is expected to be another round of showdown as there is little hope of reconciliation.

The meeting is scheduled for the last week of March and could be used for further crack down on the dissenters, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav and their supporters. However, both the leaders have decided to go on hammering the issue they have been raising– inner-party democracy and transparency. 

“Both the groups are waiting for the meeting of National Council which is scheduled during the last week of March. Since there is a little chance of any rapprochement, both the sides are waiting for the meeting for the next round of fight,” said a senior party leader. 

Though there is a lot of activity on social media on the issue, most of the senior leaders, except Maharashtra leader Mayank Gandhi, are maintaining silence. They are busy in proxy battles while second-rank leaders are engaging volunteers.

Gandhi’s second blog on Saturday has created flutter in the party circle as he has accused Ashish Khetan of targeting him.

As a fallout of Gandhi’s attack on the leadership, the Mumbai-based leader has been sacked from the Black Berry Messenger (BBM), an informal online group of party leaders who can instantly communicate on important issues. This signals further actions against him from the Arvind Kejriwal group which is in control of the party.

Meanwhile, Yadav, Bhushan, Ajit Jha and some other leaders met on Saturday to decide further course of action. Yadav has decided to work on farmers’ front. They also decided to hammer on the issue of transparency and inner-party democracy. According to sources, Bhushan will continue raising issue of transparency in collecting donations during elections. 

Yadav declared his intentions of working on farmers’ front.  Meanwhile, some senior leaders are still putting up a brave face and downplaying the severity of the decision of National Executive.

“It does not mean much. The nine-member Political Affairs Committee hardly meets once in three months. Both the leaders are active on their fronts and will be working for the party,” says senior party leader Anand Kumar who had worked hard to defuse the crisis. 

Another senior leader Kumar Vishwas, who celebrated Holi with Yogendra Yadav on Friday, is also hopeful of a solution.