JOIN USAAP rift spreads to states
The fight between Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, has spread to the states.
The group led by Yadav and Bhushan will call a conference of its supporters on April 14, and the Kejriwal faction will soon revamp the AAP's state committees. Leaders from the Yadav-Bhushan camp met on Monday to chalk out future strategy. They decided to call a conference of volunteers in a fortnight.
The conference is being convened to explain to the workers that all the leaders were illegally sacked from the party committees. The faction is expected to call upon the volunteers to fight against the “corrupt practices adopted by the party leadership” to gain power in Delhi.
They will also explain how “Kejriwal has become dictator” and abandoned Swaraj, the concept Kejriwal himself developed to decentralise power and devolve it to the grassroots.
Yadav, Anand Kumar, Ajit Jha and other leaders will soon visit the states to mobilise volunteers for the conference.
The Kejriwal faction has also formed a committee under the leadership of Sanjay Singh to look after organizational matters. The committee has been asked with submitting a report within 15 days.
However, party sources say they are contacting state and district-level committees and instructing them to update the list of AAP members. Party sources say the state committees have also started meetings to decide on their course of action. The states have to decide which side they will support, as there is no scope for neutrality.
The Maharashtra executive of the AAP meets on Tuesday to debate its future course.
However, Kejriwal on Monday dismissed reports of crisis in the party, and told reporters everything was fine and that they would manage things.
Meanwhile, the war on social media continued on the day.
The AAP leadership released a video clip of what it said was Kumar Vishwas' speech in the National Council to show that his loyalty to Kejriwal was unquestionable. The clip is said to have been posted on Facebook and Twitter to counter the murmur that Vishwas had been unhappy with Kejriwal for quite some time.
Vishwas was in tears as he praised his leader.