Forming new party among options at AAP rebel meeting

Workers and party volunteers at the ‘Swaraj Samvad’ meeting in Gurgaon (Photo: Twitter/Dipankar Ghose)

Rebel Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are organizing a ‘Swaraj Samvad’ meeting in Gurgaon today along with disgruntled volunteers and party workers who are not happy with the functioning of the current party leadership. Party workers have been asked the quintessential question as to whether they support the formation of a new party. The vote is likely to take place later today.

“It’s a day of new beginning. AAP Constitution gives an ordinary member of the party, the freedom of expression which no other party gives and if the workers are using that freedom I am sure the party would respect it. I am not sure if the party has changed its own constitution,” Yadav told reporters before the meeting started. Along with Yadav, some Lok Sabha candidates along with senior leader Shanti Bhushan and Delhi MLA Pankaj Pushkar are also in attendance at the meeting.

However, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who belongs to the Arvind Kejriwal camp, has said that the party would crack down on all those who attend the meeting.

“The AAP has nothing to do with it. The way it is being advertised makes it seem as if the AAP has moved away from its core values. This is defaming the party,” he said.

The meeting comes days after both Yadav and Bhushan were controversially expelled from the party’s national executive body. The party is embroiled in a fierce and bitter feud with a majority of the party leadership in support of Kejriwal. Both Yadav and Bhushan have complained that there is no internal democracy within the party and that Kejriwal is governing it with an authoritarian leadership. The two leaders were also voted out of the party’s key decision making panel — the political affairs committee (PAC) early in March.

Source:: Indian Express