Prashant Bhushan Writes Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal, Compares AAP to Stalin's Russia

Having been removed from AAP's National Executive Council as well as its Political Affairs Committee, founding member Prashant Bhushan wrote an open letter to AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, accusing him and his supporters of turning the outfit into a "supremo-oriented, high command culture kind of party".

Bhushan was severely critical of the rowdiness that took place at the party's National Council meeting on 28 March, in the letter written to NDTV.

"You should read Orwell's Animal Farm to see the parallels between Stalin's Russia and what is happening in our party today. God and history will not forgive what you are doing to the party. You feel that you can rectify everything by running the Delhi government well in the 5 years that you have... Even traditional political parties like Congress, BJP have done some governance. But the dream that we started with for clean and principled politics and corruption free governance was much much bigger," Bhushan said.

He also made mention of the arguments between him and Kejriwal prior to the Delhi elections. "In the second meeting of the PAC to discuss candidate selection, because I had received complaints about two of the candidates who were being proposed in that meeting, I pointed this out. You got very angry saying, 'Why do you think we will be selecting crooked people?' I said that is not the point — we need to have some transparency and due diligence. That led to an argument and I walked out of that meeting and wrote an email on November 27, that I cannot be a rubber stamp for non-transparent and questionable selection..." he added.

Bhushan also made the point that he "had said that rather than winning by these kinds of candidates and means, it's better to go with honourable candidates and run the risk of a possible loss". If I had wanted the party to lose the elections, I would have resigned and gone public with my reasons at that very time. If Yogendra Yadav wanted the party to lose, he would not have convened that meeting and stopped me from going public. Instead, he worked his heart out for this campaign, defended the party on innumerable occasions on TV. And yet you have the temerity to accuse even him, along with me, of working for the defeat of the party!"