Senior Aam Aadmi Party leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav will present a set of five demands before the party’s crucial National Council meeting on Saturday. They had earlier presented the demands before the Kejriwal camp.
The demands include bringing the party within the ambit of the Right to Information Act; involving volunteers in key decisions; an investigation by the party’s Lokpal into allegations of dubious funding received by the party during elections; guaranteeing the autonomy of State units; and filling vacancies in the National Executive through a secret ballot.
Over the past 11 days, leaders from both camps have tried to come to some sort of understanding over these demands, but talks appeared to have broken down irrevocably on Thursday night. On Friday, in a slanging match, both sides presented their own versions of the developments.
Of the 350 voting members in the council, several are said to be supportive of the issues raised by Mr. Yadav and Mr. Bhushan. The two leaders said the Kejriwal camp was spreading “lies and conspiracies” about them and the party had not taken any action on their demands. A letter to the Kejriwal camp in which they had offered their resignation conditional on meeting the demands was being circulated as proof that they had already resigned.
The Kejriwal camp, through leaders Sanjay Singh and Ashish Khetan, insisted that they had tried their best to “save the AAP family”, but Mr. Yadav and Mr. Bhushan had pulled out of negotiations under the influence of “unknown forces”. “I request both leaders to stop spreading misinformation among the volunteers and the public; we have not only agreed to the points they had put forward but are also trying very hard to keep the party united like a family,” Mr. Singh said.
