Delhi – The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday sacked its parliamentary party leader Dharamvira Gandhi —who had spoken against Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan’s expulsion from the National Executive — and replaced him with Arvind Kejriwal-loyalist Bhagwant Mann.
The decision came hours after expulsion of dissidents Bhushan, Yadav, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha from the party on Monday. The day also saw the two camps trading charges against each other.
Gandhi, who had trounced Preneet Kaur in Patiala constituency in the Lok Sabha polls last year, had been highly critical of the party leadership in the way Bhushan and Yadav had been removed from party’s top posts. He had even walked out from the AAP’s National Council meeting on March 28 in protest and had sent his message to Swaraj Samvad convention on April 14, organised by the rebel camp.
Attacking Bhushan and Yadav, Mann said the two leaders had been sacked for carrying out anti-party activities. “I have raised maximum questions, participated in maximum debates and raised concerns about various Bills in the House. If the party wants to give me more responsibilities, then I am ready to shoulder them,” Mann said.
Mann, an MP from Sangrur in Punjab, had openly come out in support of Kejriwal when the party was experiencing a bitter war between the two camps.
On his removal, Gandhi said: “It doesn’t matter to me… it’s a petty issue. I have come for a different kind of politics and I am here to serve people of my constituency,” he said.
Reacting to his expulsion, Prashant Bhushan said AAP was no longer a party and had become a ‘khap panchayat’. “It’s being run by a dictator and his coterie is following his decree,” he said.
“The whole drama was pre-scripted and the way dissents were crushed and actions were taken only reflect a Stalinist’s purge…but the only positive thing that has come out of this entire fallout is that the drama has finally ended,” said Bhushan. He accused former journalist and now Kejriwal aide Asish Khetan of planting stories in 2011 and party general secretary Pankaj Gupta of accepting Rs 2 crore dubious donations.
Khetan, on his part, dared Bhushan to prove the charges against him or else be prepared for consequences. He also accused Prashant and Shanti Bhushan of running a PIL industry to build assets.
“I’m not going to spare the Bhushans. Either they have to prove the charges against me or come clean on how they have formed Rs 500-700 crore property through PILs,” said Khetan.
Lashing out at Kejriwal, Shanti Bhushan said: “I made a mistake in identifying Arvind Kejriwal. It is a very serious mistake as to what kind of person he is. He is the new Hitler.”