A day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national executive (NE) voted out Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan from the party’s political affairs committee (PAC), the party has been rattled by a letter from Mayank Gandhi, its senior leader from Mumbai and NE member.
In a letter addressed to AAP volunteers, Mr. Gandhi said that he was taken aback by the resolution of removing both the leaders publicly, especially as they themselves were willing to leave.
In a veiled attack on the party’s top leadership, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Mr. Gandhi said the decision to sack them was against the overwhelming sentiments of volunteers from all over the world.
“I am extremely sorry that I am breaking the diktat of not speaking to anyone outside on what transpired in the national executive meeting, yesterday [Wednesday],” he began his letter which was uploaded on his blog.
“Rather than get information from selective leaks and stray statements, I have decided to give some factual details of the meeting in the public domain,” he wrote.
He was told that disciplinary action would be taken against him, if he revealed anything. “So be it — my first allegiance is to the higher truth,” he said.
Mr. Yadav was aware that the Delhi CM did not want him in the PAC, as it was difficult for him to work together, the letter said. Despite two formulae presented by Mr. Yadav which included either the reconstitution of the PAC where he and Mr. Bhushan will not be candidates or to keep PAC as it was with both not attending any meeting.
“So, while I agreed that they can step down from the PAC, the manner and intention behind the resolution was not acceptable. Hence, the decision to abstain [from voting],” he said.
On Thursday, Mr. Gandhi told journalists here that he did not want to speak to them. “I wrote the blog because I felt that I should tell my volunteers what exactly happened in the meeting. There are people who leak letters and there are people who don’t. I am the one among them who don’t leak,” he said, adding that it was not done to gain publicity.
