Former Navy chief L Ramdas and Prashant Bhushan. Former Navy chief L Ramdas and Prashant Bhushan.

A day after sacking four senior leaders from its National Executive, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) removed Admiral L Ramdas as its internal Lokpal on Sunday. The former Navy Chief, who is seen by many in AAP as being close to Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, issued a statement expressing disappointment that he was not “accorded the courtesy” of being informed before the decision was made public.

The party National Executive met on Sunday and, building on decisions taken on Saturday, removed Bhushan from the disciplinary committee, of which he was thus far the head.

“The NE reconstituted the three-member internal Lokpal panel following the completion of the term of the previous panel which was headed by Admiral Ramdas,” the AAP said in an official statement. On the new Lokpal panel is former IPS officer N Dilip, former CISF DIG and lawyer Rakesh Sinha, and educationist S P Verma.

In a statement issued in response, Ramdas said that as recently as on February 15, he had been requested to consider being the party’s Lokpal for another five years.

“I am disappointed that the leadership of the party did not accord me the courtesy of informing me first before making this decision public. I still await their phone-call…,” Ramdas said. “As recently as January 2015, I was asked to investigate complaints against potential electoral candidates. I took it as a sign of the party’s confidence in me when on February 15th, at an informal meeting at the home of Mr Kejriwal, in the presence of many other senior leaders of the party, including members of the executive committee, I was actually requested to consider serving an additional five years as Lokpal.”

Ramdas said he was more “sad than surprised” at the reaction to two letters he wrote, on the basis of which many in the Kejriwal faction believed his loyalties lay with Yadav and Bhushan. “My… letters… reflected my effort to encourage the various leaders of the party to work together to remember the principles on which it was founded and to make sure that the promises made to the electorate… were fulfilled. Unfortunately I did not succeed…”

Yadav attacked the AAP on Twitter: “As per Party’s constitution, the NE has no authority to appoint new Lokpal. Only the Lokpal can appoint their successor. Shocked to hear that a party built on Lokpal movement has thrown out its own Lokpal.”

The new disciplinary committee will have Aashish Khetan, Pankaj Gupta and Dinesh Waghela. “The new panel is likely to take up the complaint against Bhushan, Yadav, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha for indulging in anti-party activities. They can even recommend action against these leaders,” sources in the party said.

The NE also set up a six-member committee to organise its planned protest against the Centre’s land acquisition law on April 22. The members of the committee are Ilyas Azmi, Prem Singh Pahari, Yogesh Dahiya, Somendra Dhaka, Gurnam Singh and Kiran Bissa.

The party also formed a committee under PAC member Sanjay Singh to decide on contesting elections in other states. “The committee has been given 15 days time to prepare a report on the current situation of organisational status in different states. This report will form the basis for the road ahead, including the state of preparation for contesting elections, if any in future,” the AAP’s statement read.

Yadav, Bhushan and their supporters had held a meeting of their own on Saturday evening, where they discussed “how to take matters forward”, but no decisions had been taken yet, sources said.

“We have not decided anything yet, and more consultations with volunteers will follow. All options including legal ones are open. But we know that we cannot let the principles of transparency and clean politics die, and we have more support than we first estimated. The decision that must be taken is whether people should raise their voice within the party itself, or outside,” said one leader, hinting at a possible separate political entity.

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