Another string of e-mails leaked amid infighting in the Aam Aadmi Party exposes founder-member Prashant Bhushan’s disagreements with the leadership over the selection of candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections in February.
In the e-mails, Mr. Bhushan said he refused to be a “rubber stamp” in the political affairs committee (PAC).
Mr. Bhushan, along with Yogendra Yadav, had been ousted from the PAC earlier this month and indications are that they could now be removed from the National Executive as well.
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In an e-mail conversation last November, Mr. Bhushan said the AAP was so desperate to win the Delhi elections that it was selecting candidates based on their winnability factor.
“I am getting a clear impression that in the desperation to win this election and the narrow view that we are adopting on winnability of the candidates, we are sacrificing the basic reason for bringing the party into existence,” he said.
“I know that we have decided to leave the management of Delhi to Arvind [Kejriwal], but sitting in the PAC to approve candidates, I cannot be a rubber stamp for arbitrary, non-transparent and questionable decisions on candidate selection, without following even minimum norms of transparency and due diligence.”
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A strong point of contention between the two camps in the run-up to the Delhi polls was the granting of ticket to 12 “tainted” candidates.
Mr. Bhushan had alleged that their inclusion went against the AAP’s stance of clean politics.
An internal inquiry committee, led by the party’s Lokpal, Admiral (Retd.) L. Ramdas, had recommended withdrawal of ticket to only two of the 12 candidates. Nine of the remaining 10 went on to win.
Mr. Bhushan’s e-mail was written after he had requested to send the bio-data of the candidates on November 27, which were to be discussed in the PAC the next day.