Headlines
Bhushan, Yadav worked against AAP for one year: Kejriwal
New Delhi, March 29
Dissident leaders Prashant
Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav had been conspiring against the AAP for the
past one year, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said.
In a
44-minute, partly emotional speech at Saturday's National Executive
meeting here, the video of which was released on Sunday, Kejriwal made
several accusations against the other two co-founders of the party.
He
alleged that the two men had made every leadership meeting of the Aam
Aadmi Party a cantankerous affair. He had bowed to many of their demands
but they never appeared to relent.
"People of Delhi trusted us
and voted to power but our own friends backstabbed us. They called me a
cheat, which even the Congress and the BJP did not dare to," said an
emotional Kejriwal.
He said Bhushan and Yadav had worked
against the party for the past one year while being within, and had
prevented people from funding it ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
The AAP chief blamed the two men for the mess the AAP was
finding itself in despite winning a smashing victory in the Delhi
election in February.
He said both Yadav and Bhushan kept leaking to the media information that harmed the AAP.
"Who benefitted from this? I? Yogendra Yadav? Prashant Bhushan? No! Parties like the BJP and the Congress benefitted."
The 46-year-old chief minister accused Bhushan and Yadav of tripping the party when they should have honoured the Delhi mandate.
Claiming
that his barely two-month-old government had achieved much more than
what Prime Minister Narendra Modi had managed to in 10 months, he
lamented that it had all gone waste.
"We should have worked to
make Delhi a model city. When we should have been in news for our
positive work, we were on the front pages because of all the wrong
reasons."
Amid repeated applause, Kejriwal cited examples to
claim that many of the accusations heaped against him by the dissidents
were baseless.
Before concluding, he said: "It is for you to
understand whether the fight that has been going for the last
one-and-a-half months is a fight of principles or ambitions."
"You
have to select them or me," he said, taking out his resignation as the
National Convenor and from the Political Affairs Committee, the National
Executive and the National Council.
"If you select them, then I will step down from all posts and work as an ordinary party worker."