Aam Aadmi Party to go for organisational revamp: Arvind Kejriwal

NEW DELHI: AAP has decided to embark on a drive to restructure the party and expand its member base after its poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections and instances of embarrassing infightings.

“It is time to restructure the party. The entire party structure will be reconstituted from booth to national level,” AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal said after a three-day national executive meeting of the party.

“The party will choose people who will go from village to village to bring in more people into the party. We’ll call it Mission Vistar (expansion).” The meeting was held in the backdrop of a series of resignations including that of Shazia Ilmi — she had quit criticising the “coterie” around Kejriwal, and a rift in the party’s top leadership with leaders like Yogendra Yadav criticising the way Kejriwal works.

Kejriwal tried to play down the problems in the party, and Yadav’s attacks on him. “Yogendraji is like an elder brother to me. I take his advice very seriously. Issues crop up in a new family and all issues have been sorted and we are a happy family again.”

The problems in the AAP have come out in the open after the election debacle, which seems to be the reason for taking the steps to revitalise the party. Its national council and national executive will be restructured.

The executive committee will have 33 members, 10 more than what it has now.

A panel led by Prithvi Reddy, a member of the national executive, will look after this restructuring of the party and its various committees. The national executive committee will have special invitees.

The party will also restructure its state units. However, a decision on whether it will fight the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra has been postponed.

Kejriwal said the party’s Lok Sabha performance wasn’t bad. “Though they said that there was a wave of ‘someone’, but the AAP did extremely well in the Lok Sabha polls. Four seats is not bad for a newly formed party which is contesting for the first time.” Kejriwal also congratulated Narendra Modi on becoming the Prime Minister. He lauded the BJP led government for the steps it announced to bring back the black money stashed abroad, but hoped that “the government does not hike gas prices because that will send price of essential commodities and fertilisers spiralling”.