Arvind Kejriwal tries to quell infighting; offers to restructure Aam Aadmi Party

Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP), hamstrung by internal dissent and differences between senior leaders, has launched a series of measures to put its recent troubles behind it. On Saturday, it unanimously rejected resignations of all its leaders.

Last week, two of the party’s leaders Yogendra Yadav and Naveen Jaihind had resigned from all party posts. After the second day of the meeting of National Executive Committee concluded, senior leader Prashant Bhushan said, “Both the leaders [Yadav and Jaihind] were requested to take their resignations back and they agreed.”

He also added that the party would request Shazia Ilmi, who resigned from the party a few weeks ago, to return. “I brought party’s attention towards certain issues with my resignation, glad party took up those issues,” Yogendra Yadav said on withdrawing his resignation.

The resignations of Yadav and Jaihind were a result of infighting between them, which surfaced when some emails exchanged between Yadav and Manish Sisodia, a senior party leader, became public. Yadav, who was the party’s candidate from Gurgaon during the Lok Sabha elections, a member of the political affairs committee (PAC) and the chief spokesperson, resigned from all party posts last week. In his email, he charged the party with “falling prey to personality cult”. He stopped short of leaving the party.

A day after Yadav and Sisodia locked horns, party chief Arvind Kejriwal reacted on the issue. Kejriwal, in a tweet, referred to Yadav as a dear friend and that the issues he raised were important and would be worked on. “Yog yadav is a v dear friend and a v valued colleague. Had long discussion with him....,” said his tweet. “Yog yadav has raised some imp issues. All of us will work on it,” he added in another tweet.

Kejriwal also tweeted that the party will try to bring back Ilmi who has resigned citing “lack of inner democracy” as the reason. The party chief reaction’s came on the second day of the national executive meeting.

Another leader, Kumar Vishwas, who left the meeting on its first day mid way citing health issues, did not attend the meeting on its second day.