JOIN USAam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal has given the go-ahead to detailed plans for the party to contest civic polls in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and the Assembly elections in Punjab.
This will lead to the next round of showdown with ousted AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, who have already been working on parallel plans.
Punjab will go to polls in 2017. The Mumbai civic polls will be held the same year.
The AAP has started identifying people who could lead the party in these polls.
It is already split in Maharashtra. Party leaders Sanjeev Sane, Lalit Babar and Maruti Bhapkar will lead scores of workers to resign from the party on Monday.
In Mumbai, the AAP may sideline Mayank Gandhi and select someone else as its face.
In Bengaluru, former Infosys CEO V Balakrishnan seems to be the obvious choice.
The party is facing difficulty in selecting an acceptable face in Punjab. Senior leader and MP Dharmveer Gandhi has been sidelined and Bhagwant Mann is trying to take centre stage. However, he is facing resistance from within the AAP.
Kejriwal was initially averse to contesting polls outside Delhi, which had ignited the factional wars. However, he changed his stance immediately after the showdown with the rebels began, and declared that the party would spread its wings to other parts of the country.
He sent party leaders Sanjay Singh and Kumar Vishwas to reorganise the party apparatus in the wake of rebellion in the AAP. The exercise had concluded a few weeks ago.
However, Kejriwal waited for the moves of rebel leaders to unfold. Now he is ready for a strike. He is expected to announce his organisational strategy for these polls in the next few days.