Arvind Kejriwal camp accuses Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav of scuttling truce talks
New Delhi: In an ugly face-off between the two warring factions of AAP, the Arvind Kejriwal camp hit back at the dissident founder-members on Friday accusing them of scuttling the 10-day-long truce talks at the behest of "unknown" forces.
The Kejriwal loyalists Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and Ashish Khetan held a media interaction to refute allegations made by Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav against the party chief.
Claiming that they tried to "save the family", Singh said the talks were held at Kejriwal's initiative and they had acceded to most of the demands raised by the dissident duo including bringing "party's decision making" under RTI, strengthening volunteer involvement, and giving more autonomy to state units in decision making.
Read: AAP rift: 'All we want is transparency, internal democracy,' say Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan
However, they questioned the intention behind seeking a probe by the internal Lokpal into a sting operation on Kejriwal allegedly trying to poach on Congress MLAs, which Yadav had criticised publicly. "It shows that their target was always Kejriwal and there was a conspiracy to remove him."
Singh said that they had even drafted an apology note, which was to be issued after the successful completion of talks.
"But I got a call from Yadav at 6.15 PM yesterday saying he does not think we will do anything (positive about their proposal) in the NC meeting on March 28," Singh said.
Read: AAP rift: Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan should 'depart gracefully’, says Kumar Vishwas
Khetan said that according to the Yadav-Bhushan camp, the five-points were not a "stumbling block" and the road was clear for a roll-out plan.
"But what happened between 2 pm, when they agreed to all the decisions, and 6.15 PM? At whose behest did they change their mind at the last moment," he said attacking them for what he termed "holier-than-thou attitude".
"But later it became clear that they did not care about the demands at all. They wanted a list of people selected by them to be nominated to the National Executive," Singh said wondering why Yadav wants "secret ballot" in that case.
Read: AAP crisis: Truce talks collapse, Bhushan and Yadav deny resigning from national executive
He went on to name Prithvi Reddy, Vijay Nair, Meera Sanyal, Atishi Marlena, Gul Panag, Dayamani Barla, Rahul Mehra, Raghav Chaddha, Maruti Bhapkar and Kiran Vissa as the members.
Responding to the duo's demands of video recording the National Council meet, Singh accused them of hypocrisy and said, "They talk of involving volunteers in decision making.
Why don't they let the NC members decide on whether to record the conversation or not," Singh said.
