Cracks in AAP wide open! Party lokpal admits '2 camps within party'

New Delhi, March 1:Amidst rumblings of a crisis within AAP, a letter by its internal Lokpal has pointed to the growth of two camps within the top leadership of the party due to an "abject breakdown in communication and mutual trust" and said it needs to make efforts to address criticisms over inner- party democracy.

With sources saying that differences have cropped up between senior AAP members, especially over the selection of candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls, the letter recommended that any criticism of inner-party democracy needed to be dealt with by an independent group which carries out an internal audit.

In the letter written ahead of its National Executive meet last week, Admiral Ramdas, a former Navy chief and the party's internal Lokpal, also said that AAP must make efforts to become a genuinely gender-sensitive party as neither its PAC nor the Delhi government led by it has any woman members.

"During the past six to eight months, there has been an abject breakdown in communications and mutual trust amongst the topmost leadership of the party.

This has in my view led to the growth of two camps within the party and loose talk about conspiracies. "This is unacceptable and shows that we are no different from any of the parties whom we criticise so vocally. I sincerely urge the entire leadership of the party... to stop listening to rumours and to discourage colleagues... who continually bring negative feedback about each other," Ramdas said in the letter.

Sources said that two senior AAP leaders and members of its all-powerful Political Affairs Committee, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, were unhappy with candidate selection.

They also said that neither was the duo in favour of the party's decision to not contest Haryana elections last year. The letter says there was a crisis situation just ahead of Delhi elections over issues raised by Bhushan who, it claims, also threatened to resign if his concerns were not addressed.

"In end December, 2014, there was a crisis situation brought about by Bhushan's unhappiness with candidate selection and the decision-making processes. If not addressed, he said he would be forced to resign from the party and go public.

"To contain this, a special meeting was called in Delhi on Jan. 3-4, 2015, where a decision was taken to refer the issue to the AAP Lokpal, assisted by a specially selected team," the letter said.

Meanwhile, media reports said that all is not well within the party. Sources said, several differences have cropped up between senior party leaders especially over the candidate selection during the Delhi assembly election. Owing to this, Bhushan and Yadav were not attending the PAC.

The Delhi unit of AAP was unhappy about the opposition over the candidate selection process as it claimed that the party already had a strong filter to weed out candidates who don't meet the party standards.

OneIndia News

(With agency inputs)