VISHWAS RILES SENIOR LEADERS IN AAP YET AGAIN
NEW DELHI: Days after his loyalty was questioned at the Aam Aadmi Party’s national executive meeting earlier this month, senior leader Kumar Vishwas continues to aggravate the party’s top brass. At a conference of AAP volunteers from Rajasthan on Saturday, Vishwas gave a speech that included a scathing critique of the party’s handling of the Punjab and Goa elections. Vishwas said that the party’s Rajasthan unit would be run according to the wishes of local volunteers, and that it would raise its own funds for next year’s assembly election. He received cheers and applause for the comment that “the days of Delhi’s dominance are over.”
Senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas attacked his party’s leadership during a scathing speech recently where he took a veiled aim at leaders close to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
“The days of Delhi’s dominance are over”, Vishwas said, drawing applause at a closeddoor conference of Rajasthan AAP volunteers on Saturday at the party’s Delhi headquarters, less than a week after some in the brass questioned his loyalty during the national executive meeting on June 4. Vishwas has been appointed AAP’s in-charge for Rajasthan, a state that goes to polls late next year.
The AAP, led by Kejriwal, has been battling resentment from within since most of its candidates lost in the elections to Goa and Punjab, states where it was seen being the strongest after Delhi.
In Saturday’s speech, Vishwas said the party’s Rajasthan unit would be run according to the wishes of local volunteers, and that it would raise its own funds for next year’s assembly election. The comments were seen as a strong critique of the leadership’s handling of the Punjab and Goa elections.
He also outlined specific reforms, saying no central leader’s pictures will be used in campaign material and that anyone who joins the party within a year of the election, slated for November 2018, will not be eligible for a ticket. A video of the speech is available on YouTube.
Vishwas and others have criticised the party for excessive centralisation in the past. On April 28, Vishwas said in a TV interview that AAP should introspect rather than blame its losses on electronic voting machines.
The party has alleged that voting machines used in the states that went to polls in February this year may have been rigged.
In Punjab, the only state other than Delhi where the party has elected representatives, Gurpreet Singh Waraich quit last month after being summarily replaced as party chief.
Many in AAP now admit that trying to run the Punjab state unit from Delhi was among the factors that cost it the election.
Some AAP leaders were livid over Vishwas’s latest comments. “You should ask him if his speech was provided to him by a rival party,” said a party member.