(This story originally appeared in on Mar 10, 2015)

NEW DELHI: Two emails sent to AAP 's global volunteers running down the party's candidates before the crucial 2015 assembly polls by Prashant Bhushan 's sister, Shalini Gupta, surfaced on Monday, hardening the lines between the two warring factions.Gupta—who worked as a coordinator for AAP's NRI supporters—had said it would be "political suicide'' to fight an election if candidates with dubious reputation were given tickets. She had conveyed that some tickets may be cancelled - with party Lokpal looking into the charges - because of the strong push given by leaders like Prashant Bhushan who did not want the party's ideology of clean politics to fall by the wayside. The mails sent on January 5 and 6, 2015, asked the volunteers to exercise caution before adopting a constituency.Confidants of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal have pointed out the mails clearly badmouth the party before a global audience and reek of anti-party activities. This, combined with Shanti Bhushan's letter demanding that Kejriwal make way for Yogendra Yadav as national convener and son Prashant's threat that he would go public with his objections to the candidate selection, had worked against the party's interest at a time when it was facing a crucial poll. In the March 4 national executive meeting, Yadav and Bhushan were ousted from the political affairs committee (PAC).Asked about the emails, Bhushan said they were "perfectly alright'' as US-based Gupta had only asked the volunteers to be careful before they spent their hard-earned money, time and energy and should be seen in context. "I had sent three letters to the party between November and December raising objections to the candidates that were being selected. There was no transparency in their selection, they had dubious backgrounds and there was no ideological convergence on what our party stood for. When I did not receive any credible response, I threatened to resign and go public with my objections,'' he said.Bhushan said it was only then that a meeting was hastily called on January 3-4 of 16-17 people, including some national executive members and state conveners. "After the meeting, it was decided that 12 cases will be sent to the internal Lokpal under Admiral L Ramdas. Gupta's mail was sent in this context where she is informing volunteers about the concerns raised in the party,'' Bhushan said.The senior SC lawyer added that it was in this context that he had said the party may as well sit in the opposition. "We were 1-2% points behind BJP then. I told the meeting that if we have such candidates with dubious reputations in our midst, we may have to compromise in the future to save the government and this will have a long-term impact on our party. It is better then to sit in opposition rather than let such people destroy our party,'' he said. The Kejriwal camp has alleged that Bhushan wanted the party to lose the Delhi polls In the email sent on January 6, she said, "One camp believes that in this game of politics we have to pick some candidates and employ some techniques that other political parties do. Also the benchmark that Arvind is using is even if these candidates have recently been inducted from other parties and we all know their reputation, source of disproportionate assets etc, or that they have used money and muscle to win previous elections, they are ok as AAP candidates as long as there is no concrete proof of any wrongdoing that would be evidence in court.''She argued that such candidates who have an unsavory reputation as local thugs, with disproportionate assets and illegal professions, and have used wrong means to win previous elections, they do not come up to the standards of an AAP candidate and "we cannot expect them to work in public interest if they win".