NEW DELHI — Aam Aadmi Party leaders countered Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan's allegations on Friday, claiming that they had been in talks with the two senior founding members for days and were close to a resolution when they did a dramatic turnaround.
"We had been holding talks with them for 10 days and had agreed on almost all issues by 2pm on Thursday," claimed AAP leader Ashish Khetan. "I don't know what happened, but by 6pm yesterday they had completely shifted gears and alleged that they didn't have faith in any of us. The big question is who are the forces that changed their mind?"
Khetan was speaking at a press conference called by AAP following a statement given by Yadav and Bhushan earlier today. The allegations by the senior party leaders, and AAP's sharp response has exacerbated the situation that has been at breaking point for days.
Khetan said that they had agreed on all major points, and Yadav had even assured him that the five points listed by them weren't "stumbling blocks" towards a resolution, and could be dealt with later.
Meanwhile Sanjay Singh at the same press conference claimed that most of the demands put forth by the senior party leaders had been agreed upon already. Yadav and Bhushan had even written a letter of apology to AAP, according to Singh.
"We had agreed on some issues and discussions were going on in others. He said that the party should be brought under the RTI. He said that volunteers should have a say in the party's decisions. We agreed on that," Singh said.
The AAP leader said that it was Yadav who proposed that all decisions should be taken via the secret ballot in the national executive meetings.
"My question is that if secret ballot needs to be taken then you should have waited for the national executive as it would discuss who would be there in the national council. And then they said they the five demands were not much important. And what Ashish Khetan and Prithvi Reddi would decide will be enough for us," he added.
Singh further said that Yadav himself made a list of people, who should be elected to the national executive.
"Prithvi Reddi, Vijay Nair, Meera Sanyal, Atishi Marlena, Gul Panag, Maruti Bhapkar, Raghav Chaddha, Rahul Mehra, DayamBarla and Kiran Vissa were the ones named in the list," he said while reading out the list that he said had been prepared earlier by Yadav.
Both Singh and Khetan claimed that the senior leaders were attempting to portray themselves as saviours, whereas Arvind Kejriwal and others were those with all the faults.
"We asked them to not attempt to increase their standing in the public eye at the cost of the party," said Khetan. "It is their 'holier than thou' attitude that is the problem."
(with ANI inputs)
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