Your move, Kejriwal: Yadav, Bhushan take the high ground in AAP row

Could it be? Is the headline grabbing AAP rift coming to a less than acrimonious end? Or are we seeing a mere ‘charade’ of talks before both leaders are ousted from the party anyway? Signs of reconciliation seemed to be in the air, when Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday agreed to meet Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, a day after they had extended an olive branch. However a new report in DNA said that Kejriwal had been forced into a corner by the fact that both Yadav and Bhushan chose to take the moral high ground by writing a letter and offering to quit the national executive, if certain ‘concerns’ the two had about the party were addressed by Kejriwal. According to the report: Sources confirm that, in the letter, they have offered to quit the party’s national executive and all important posts, if Kejriwal accepts their terms. Namely, bring Swaraj into the party; regularise decision-making bodies such as the Parliamentary Affairs Committee; bring the party under RTI and make minutes of meetings available online; set up a communication network between volunteers and authority figures; give autonomy to state units; fill in the 7-8 posts lying vacant in the national executive for over two years in a manner that corrects the gender imbalance. The latest development came after a PTI report on Tuesday which said, an SMS was sent to Kejriwal on Monday morning on behalf of both the leaders. He replied: “will meet soon.” [caption id=“attachment_2158541” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] In another sign of reconciliation between the two warring factions, senior leaders from the Kejriwal camp met Yadav on Monday night and held discussions over several contentious issues, hours after the Delhi Chief Minister’s return from Bengaluru. Both camps had termed the discussions as “positive”. Party sources said AAP leaders Sanjay Singh and Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh and Ashish Khetan met Yadav late on Monday night and the discussions continued until 3am. ”There is peace after a three-hour sleep. There is peace now. We will be successful,” party leader Kumar Vishwas tweeted this morning. The latest developments are unexpected, given that it was widely expected that Kejriwal would seal both Yadav and Bhushan’s fate once he returned from Bangalore. In fact AAP sources who spoke to _Firstpost_ shortly before he returned from Bangalore said Kejriwal was planning to resign as the party’s national convenor after eliminating all warring factions. “Efforts are on to reach a consensus on the proposed ouster of the rebel leaders. A final decision in this regard will be taken in a meeting on Tuesday that has been called to finalise the agenda for the National Council. The Kejriwal camp wants to throw them out of the party by moving a resolution in a decisive meeting of the party’s supreme policy-making body,” a senior party leader told Firstpost. After removing all dissenters, Kejriwal will also quit the post of party convenor because he is overburdened with work as Delhi chief minister," he further said. In sharp contrast to this expected course of action however, the AAP convenor seems to be keen to at least try and patch the rift. According to a report in the Hindustan Times, there will be be more meetings to iron out differences that emerged into the open after both Yadav and Prashant Bhusan were sacked from the Political Affairs Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, on 4 March. Kejriwal had also reportedly expressed his ‘displeasure’ at the fact that various AAP leaders had been making public statements with regard to the rift. For AAP, the last few weeks have been rife with drama. There have been allegations, counter allegations, sting operations, counter sting operations, leaks, letters and more. In fact, all the ingredients necessary for a political potboiler that even Bollywood would find it hard to do justice to. The main takeaway from it all, however, has been that AAP is a party that implodes when successful, and that Arvind Kejriwal is more dictator than aam aadmi. Their spectacular victory in Delhi came only a month ago, but it already seems like a long time ago. At a time when they should have been basking in their victory and getting down to implementing their ambitious election manifesto, party members have instead been largely sniping at one another. As pointed out by Firstpost senior editor Sandipan Sharma at the time, “Kejriwal and his party are on the brink of implosion; their goodwill has disappeared and the mask has slipped off”. “His insistence on retaining the AAP convener’s post (even Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi never enjoyed two positions), his inability to act like an unbiased leader and instead play petty power games like a faction leader or restrain his colleagues from fighting puerile battles in public are as serious as his intransigence to adhere to principles of internal democracy, and his predilection for sycophants and impatience. He seems to be in a hurry to do everything: form the government, quit, contest polls, and oust colleagues all at the same time”, Sharma noted. Perhaps Kejriwal had some time to reflect on just how much the entire episode was hurting both him and his party, while he was at Bangalore. On the other hand, this could well be yet another tactic by the leader to show that he tried to fix things with Yadav and Bhushan before kicking them out of the party once and for all. Although Kejriwal has in the past ‘accepted’ criticism from Yadav himself and has demonstrated the ability to say he is sorry for his actions, he has also shown himself to be a canny and unpredictable politician. Despite these reconciliatory gestures, we will only know Yadav and Bhushan’s fate once the AAP National Council is over. This could probably be why there has been intense lobbying on behalf of both Yadav and Bhushan in the days leading up to the National Executive, as described in this Times of India report. The report said: “Members of the NC in Delhi claim they have been receiving calls from the US, from people claiming to be part of AAP’s NRI cell, openly asking them to support Yadav and Bhushan. Manish Guliya, a party worker, claims to have received a call from one Aarti on Tuesday morning, who spoke to him for close to 20 minutes in an effort to convince him to support Yadav and Bhushan. " Either way, the drama in the party is certainly far from over. Can Kejriwal afford to keep Yadav and Bhushan in the party? Can he save face and kick them out anyway? As of now, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan have upped the ante. It’s Kejriwal’s move.