AAP's national executive hijacked: 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. - IANS