Mumbai, March 28
Senior leader and anti-Narmada Dam activist Medha Patkar on Saturday said that she has quit the AAP following dissident leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan\'s expulsion from the party\'s national executive in Delhi.

Announcing her decision at a hurriedly convened press conference, Patkar expressed pain over the development and said: \"Whatever happened in AAP meeting is inappropriate and I condemn it.\"

Patkar said the violence and other happenings show disrespect to the party\'s senior leaders and did not augur well and so she has decided to quit.

Patkar is reported to have been unhappy with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal\'s style of functioning.

Besides Patkar, several groups and activists of the National Alliance of Peoples\' Movements are expected to follow suit.

On March 6, senior AAP leader Mayank Gandhi had unfurled the banner of revolt by revealing AAP internal meetings and later claimed he was being targeted.

AAP\'s national executive hijacked by Kejriwal camp: Yadav, Bhushan

Alleging that the AAP, which had emerged to give the people \"alternative politics that the other existing parties were not providing\", had become the \"same kind\", expelled members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan on Saturday said the national executive meeting was hijacked by the Arvind Kejriwal camp.

Addressing a press conference here, the duo said the national executive meeting of the party was hijacked by the Kejriwal camp and the meeting took place in a chaotic atmosphere.

\"As soon as we reached there, I was greeted with \'murdabad\' slogans,\" Yadav said.

He said he found that \"only a selected few were allowed to go inside the meeting venue\". Yadav briefly held a sit-in only to join the meeting after some time.

\"No procedure was followed in the meeting,\" Yadav alleged.

Giving a peek into the meeting, Yadav said \"it was chaotic\". He said when he asked Gopal Rai, who had been appointed in-charge, to give them some time to put forth their point of view, Rai asked them to write it down.

\"I then asked him how was it possible as the voting was already on,\" Yadav said.

\"As Arvind finished his speech, he left the meeting saying that he had pressing work to attend to. Gopal Rai was made in-charge without any voting or discussion,\" he said, adding that right after that Manish Sisodia took over and began reading a \"resolution\".

Sisodia said that 167 members had supported it and started voting on it by asking who were in favour and who were against it, Yadav said.

\"Nobody knew who were voting or non-voting members. The drama continued. Meanwhile, I kept insisting to Rai to at least have a discussion on it, but nobody listened and we came out of the meeting knowing well it was all pre-planned,\" he said.

Bhushan echoed Yadav\'s comments, adding that it was shameful that the Aam Aadmi Party, which emerged out of an unprecedented movement had become like the same political parties it used to oppose for not being democratic, ethical and transparent.

The duo also presented some of their \"injured\" colleagues before the media during the press conference.

Yadav says meeting violent, AAP disagrees

AAP members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan on Saturday said a scuffle broke out during the National Council meeting here, a charge rubbished by the party, which maintained it was \"peaceful\".

Founding members Yadav and Bhushan were sacked from the National Executive following which the two said AAP members behaved like hooligans and beat up people who tried to oppose the resolution to oust them.

Many who were not members were brought in for the meeting, said Yadav.

Yadav\'s supporters Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha were also removed from the AAP\'s 21-member National Executive, the party\'s highest executive body that coordinates its activities at the national level.

Earlier at the meeting, after party convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal\'s speech, around 10 people stood up and shouted slogans \'Gaddaron ko nikalo\' (sack the traitors), Yadav said.

He said Kejriwal provoked members in the meeting, and that it was an \"orchestrated performance\".

Yadav said two bouncers dragged Ramzan Chaudhary, AAP member who supported the two, and thrashed him.

Chaudhary said: \"I was only asking for a debate in the meeting and bouncers beat me. I also have fractures.\"

Yadav said that \"when I asked Arvind why was a council member being beaten up, he stood still.\"

However, AAP rubbished their claims and said the meeting was \"peaceful\".

\"No violence, no bouncers were used and the meeting was peaceful,\" said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Party leader Sanjay Singh brushed aside allegations that violence was used in the meeting, saying they are \"completely baseless and untrue cooked-up stories\".

Medha Patkar quits AAP; Yadav says meeting violent, AAP disagrees