AAP Crisis: Kejri offers to quit as party’s national convenor

New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has offered to resign as the national convener of AAP amidst a growing rift within his party.

The development comes ahead of the party’s National Executive meeting scheduled on Wednesday evening.

 The national executive meet will decide the fate of senior party leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan in its political affairs committee (PAC) who have attacked Kejriwal repeatedly.

Kejriwal, citing health reasons, will skip the meeting. He is likely to leave for Bengaluru on Wednesday evening for naturopathy treatment for a period of 10 days.

Following the news of Kejriwal resignation as the national convenor, Prahsnat Bhushan has also offered to quit from AAP’s PAC, sources revealed.

Barely three weeks after registering a massive win in the national capital rift in the party widened. Sharp differences have come to the fore within the party with allegations that Bhushan and Yadav were trying to “remove” Kejriwal from the post of party convener.

Kejriwal had tendered his resignation as AAP National Convener in the last National Executive meeting held on February 26, but it was unanimously rejected.

Kejriwal had also skipped the meeting of the party’s highest decision-making body then.

Talks were on late Tuesday night in the party to decide the fate of Yadav and Bhushan. An AAP source indicated that despite the harsh words against Bhushan, the leadership is still open to “some form of reconciliation with him but not Yadav”.

The odds are heavily stacked against Bhushan and Yadav since the Wednesday meeting will be limited to 27 voting members of the national executive where Kejriwal’s supporters are in a majority. AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai said: “There are 21 members of the national executive and six state representatives.”