delhi

Updated: Mar 11, 2015 01:26 IST

Hours after the AAP accused senior leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav of working against the party during the Delhi assembly elections, both refuted all charges on Tuesday and said they will respond soon to the allegations.

Bhushan's reaction comes after four top Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders said in a press statement that Bhushan and Yadav were removed from the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) on March 4 because the two veterans worked to ensure AAP's defeat in the Delhi polls.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, the senior lawyer said, "They (Kejriwal backers) have been saying all this before to target (me and Yogendra Yadav). Earlier they got smaller leaders to do it. Now the PAC has come out in the open with same false allegations."

Prashant Bhushan to @htTweets : The truth must be brought before the nation. #AAPRift — Darpan Singh (@darpans) March 10, 2015

The statement against the two founding members of the party was issued earlier in the day in the name of Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai, Pankaj Gupta and Sanjay Singh. The four leaders are part of the all-powerful nine-member PAC.

In their statement, the four leaders accused Bhushan of stopping workers from other states from campaigning in Delhi and blocking donations from coming in. They also said Bhushan told volunteers that the AAP should lose the Delhi polls by getting around 20-22 seats so that the party leadership could be changed. The statement accused Yadav of planting news stories and speaking off the record with journalists to ruin the party's image.

During election campaign, Prashant Bhushan Kept threatening to ruin preparations by holding press conferences: AAP statement @htTweets — Darpan Singh (@darpans) March 10, 2015 Yogendra Yadav planted negative news stories to damage #AAP, spoke off the record with scribes to ruin Kejriwal's image: AAP statement — Darpan Singh (@darpans) March 10, 2015

Bhushan, in response, said he would prepare a written press statement and bring the whole truth before the public and volunteers.

"The truth must be brought before the nation. I will respond to every single allegation. I cannot say when. Maybe in a couple of days," Bhushan told HT.

Bhushan also demanded that the AAP must release the minutes of the March 4 National Executive meeting after which he and Yadav were removed from the PAC.

"All we have been demanding is transparency. Mayank Gandhi also wanted the minutes released. Forget the minutes, they do not even release the decisions that are taken at party meetings," he said.

Gandhi is another senior leader who has come under attacks from those in the Arvind Kejriwal camp after he wrote his first blog on Thursday and panned the outfit for the manner in which Yadav and Bhushan were ousted from a key decision-making panel.

Minutes after the statement came, Yadav tweeted, “(I am) at sewagram, Wardha, inside Bapu's kutir. Away from all madness.”

Yadav later said that the statement by his colleagues opens up possibility for a truthful dialogue.

"I welcome the statement by 4 colleagues. Begins the possibility of open, transparent dialogue. Truth shall prevail," Yadav wrote on Twitter. "Appeal to my colleagues that they stop forcing Delhi MLAs to endorse statements against us."

"Hope this statement ends all slander and planting of allegations. Hope there is no more coercion of party functionaries and Delhi MLAs on the issue," Yadav added.



Yadav: Hope PB & my response will also be duly publicised by party media. Hope party's website will be opened for all volunteers responses. — Darpan Singh (@darpans) March 10, 2015

Earlier, two other Kejriwal camp members - parliamentarian Bhagwant Mann and Maharashtra leader Anjali Damania - had demanded their removal from the party, saying they conspired with the BJP to defeat the AAP in the Delhi polls.

Founder members Bhushan, a leading Supreme Court lawyer, and Yadav, a political expert, were removed from the PAC after a stormy meeting of the party's National Executive last Wednesday after they questioned the rookie party's one-person centric campaign in the national capital -- a veiled dig at Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

Watch:Prashant Bhushan speaks out