JOIN USAAP openly attacks Bhushan, Yadav
Indicating a further crackdown on dissenters, senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday accused Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav of tarnishing Arvind Kejriwal’s image and trying to ensure the party’s defeat in the Delhi polls.
The signatories to the party’s statement include Delhi Deputy Chief minister Manish Sisodia and Transport Minister Gopal Rai. In response, Bhushan and Yadav expressed their readiness of coming out with the “truth”. Yadav accused the leadership of coercing party functionaries and MLAs to sign statements against them.
The joint statement of Sisodia, Rai, Pankaj Gupta and Sanjay Singh was officially released by the party.
It said that when volunteers were working hard to ensure victory in the Assembly elections, three senior leaders– Bhushan, Yadav and Shanti Bhushan–were trying their best to make sure that the party was defeated. While levelling 9 charges, the party said that the three leaders were dissuading volunteers from participating in campaigning.
“Prashant Bhushan made phone calls to workers in the provinces to stop them from participating in the election campaign,” said the statement.
The leaders have quoted Bhushan as telling workers from Mysuru not to participate in the campaign. “This time, it is essential to defeat the party. Only then, Arvind will come to his senses,” Bhushan has been quoted as saying.
The statement claims that Bhushan expressed his views in the presence of Mumbai leader Anjali Damania. The statement also accuses Bhushan of dissuading people from making donations.
It has also said that Bhushan told Ashish Khetan that since he wanted to defeat the party, he would not campaign.
The leaders have said that the party refrained from making public the reasons behind their expulsion from the Political Affairs Committee as it would have “adversely affected their personalities”, but the attempt to portray the decision of the National Executive as “undemocratic and irresponsible” has forced them to make the reasons public.
The leaders have reiterated allegations against Yadav of planting negative stories in newspapers to “tarnish the image of Arvind”. Allegations that associate Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan with AVAM have been reiterated.
AVAM had stated that the party received donations from sources with dubious credentials. In response, both the dissenters hinted at big disclosers as to how the party behaved during elections.