Within hours of Bhushan – Yadav press conference, the Kejriwal faction held a press meet to reply to all accusations made. It was adressed by Ashish Khaitan, Sanjay Singh and Ashutosh.
They were better equipped to defend the charges against them since they were armed with ‘lists’ and ‘apology letter’ penned by Yogendra Yadav in his own hand writing.
They disclosed that hectic meetings were held over 10 days to bridge the differences between the two factions.
Yesterday noon, at a final meeting held at Khaitan’s place, where Yadav and Bhushan were present as also the three people mentioned above, final drafts of the agreement and way forward were chalked out.
Yadav proffered a list of 9 persons who should be “elected” in the National Executive and the names were accepted.
The names are as follows :
Meera Sanyal, Atishi Marlena, Vijay Nair, Gul Panag, Prithvi Reddy, Maruti Bhapkar and some other lesser known AAP regional leaders. Later, it was accepted in principle that the party image had been damaged by lot of washing of dirty linen in public. Yadav promised that no one from their faction would go to the press directly with scoops or stings and in fact an apology letter for past actions was written out – again in Yadav’s hand writing.
Yadav promised to get back in half an hour saying how these decisions would be ‘rolled out and acted upon’. But instead Yadav called back at 6.30 p.m. or so to go back on the collective decision by saying –
“We have no faith in Kejriwal himself or trust in you guys. We will not declare any agreement”.
So the question to ask is – who did they talk with in the interim 3 – 4 hours that overturned all the negotiations of 10 days?
Sanjay Singh said categorically that the list of “five demands” that the duo keep mentioning are not an issue at all since all these have been accepted and referred to relevant committees to probe into.
Even Yadav had stated that these were not stumbling blocks any more and they trusted Khaitan and Sanjay would take care of them.
“Then why do they keep bringing it up again and again and calling us liars while doing so?”
They also took objection to Yadav’s remark which was repeated again by the dissidents camp today:
“Na todenge, na chodenge, sudharenge or sudharenge” ( We shall not break, we shall not split, we shall improve, others and ourselves too).
Why do they demean the party and its workers by talking of improvements – as if they are indulging in many wrong activities? Asked Khaitan.
With this counter attack, hard lines have been drawn in the AAP war.
There is no coming together now, it is clear.
