Axed from AAP's PAC at behest of Kejriwal, suggests Prashant Bhushan

Prashant Bhushan today suggested that he and Yogendra Yadav were axed from the Political Affairs Committee of AAP at the behest of Arvind Kejriwal and the party's top leader wanted to "dominate" decision-making, which he had opposed

New Delhi: Prashant Bhushan today suggested that he and Yogendra Yadav were axed from the Political Affairs Committee of AAP at the behest of Arvind Kejriwal and the party's top leader wanted to "dominate" decision-making, which he had opposed.

Prashant Bhushan. File Pic

The noted lawyer activist and AAP's founding member said he was trying to ensure that the party stays "true to its founding principals and ideals" and will continue to do so. "I think that would be a fair conclusion for anybody to draw under the circumstances," he told Headlines Today when asked if he and Yadav were sacked from the PAC yesterday at the behest of Kejriwal, who himself did not attend the meeting citing illness.

Though Kejriwal is a great leader and has many admirable qualities, Bhushan said, adding but he also has some serious defects, one of them being his desire "to dominate decision-making". "I told him it's important to have a broad-based and independent-minded panel which could stand up to him and tell him you are wrong," Bhusan said, adding Kejriwal replied that PAC had many such members.

Group of people around Kejriwal may also be filling his ears against him and Yadav, he said. He said AAP need to set up an inquiry into the donations of Rs 50 lakh it received from suspect companies to ensure that it does not recur, a concern he had flagged earlier.

Asked about PAC member Mayank Gandhi's statement, in which he is critical of the manner of the ouster of Bhushan and Yadav, and that he wanted to hold a press conference against candidate selection process and other issues during Delhi Assembly polls, Bhusan said he did wanted AAP to address these issues.

The lawyer activist had threatened to resign if the issue was not addressed because "if the party gets derailed from its founding principals and... there is no reasonable hope of retrieving it back to its original principals, then I will be forced to resign and make public the reasons behind it". The communication system between him and Kejriwal had broken down, he said.

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