AAP crisis: Truce talks collapse, Bhushan and Yadav deny resigning from national executive
National council meet on Saturday, both are expected to lose all posts in the party
By : pragya singh
Update: 2015-03-27 08:04 GMT
New Delhi: Talks for calling a truce between the two warring factions in the Aam Aadmi Party collapsed on Thursday evening. While the party said dissenting leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav resigned from the party’s national executive, the two leaders immediately denied the announcement and challenged the AAP to produce proof of their resignations.
The big showdown will be during the party’s national council meet on Saturday, when the two founding leaders of the party will be voted out not just from the national executive but are expected to lose all other posts they hold in the party. Announcing that Mr Yadav and Mr Bhushan have quit the party’s national executive, senior party leader Ashish Khetan said the two were adamant on dethroning party convenor Arvind Kejriwal from his post.
“A lot of effort had been made over the last 10 days. No further talks will be held to address the issue,” senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas said after the meeting of its political affairs committee (PAC).
The disintegration of the party became imminent after it held two successive meets of its powerful decision-making body, the PAC, on Wednesday and Thursday in the presence of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Immediately after the announcement, deputy CM Manish Sisodia tweeted, “Despite accepting all their demands they are insisting to remove AK. In public they say AK is the leader, in pvt they insist on his removal (sic).” Notably, the party based the ouster of the rebel duo on the March 17 letter in which Mr Yadav and Mr Bhushan had offered to resign from all party posts if their five demands, were accepted.