delhi

Updated: Mar 29, 2015 14:44 IST

AAP leaders may wish otherwise but a Hindustan Times-C fore survey on Saturday revealed that 83% respondents feel that the rift in the party is hurting the image of Arvind Kejriwal's government.

Fifty-five per cent of 2,036 people surveyed said Kejriwal was turning AAP into a one-leader party.

In fact, 37% respondents blamed Kejriwal for the internal squabble and 25% thought his supporters were responsible. While 13% felt both groups were equally responsible for the turmoil, 16% felt it was the fault of Yadav and Bhushan.

The rift in the party became visible when Yadav called Kejriwal a dictator in a letter last June.

Now with both of them at loggerheads with the Kejriwal camp, 70% respondents felt the infighting was taking the focus away from the poll promises. Only 23% disagreed while the rest couldn't decide. Also, few seemed impressed with the performance of the AAP government in the first month.

Six per cent respondents rated the performance of the Delhi government over last one month as excellent, 22% thought it was good though 34% called it average. While 21% of those surveyed did not have an opinion, 17% found the government's show poor.

AAP founder members Yadav and Bhushan, who had challenged Kejriwal's leadership, were on Saturday removed from the party's powerful national executive by an overwhelming majority at the national council meet, a move slammed as "murder of democracy" by the duo.

Amid high drama, a resolution to remove the two dissident leaders was passed by around 230 of around 300 national council members present in the meeting.

After making an emotional speech, party convenor Kejriwal left the venue before the resolution to remove the two leaders was introduced by Manish Sisodia.

As the action unfolded Saturday, HT also ran online polls asking its readers whether the duel is going to affect party's image and how do they rate the government's performance.

According to one online poll — the respondents for which volunteered and were not chosen scientifically — 81.98% respondents feel that the rift in AAP is hurting the image of Kejriwal's government. 48.76% people feel that Kejriwal is responsible for the internal squabble in AAP whereas 21.29% feel Bhushan and Yadav are responsible for the squabble. While 10.79% felt Kejriwal's supporters were responsible, 16.63% felt all of them were to be blamed.

79.66% respondents think Kejriwal is trying to turn AAP into a one-leader party whereas 16.08% disagree. Only 4.26% said they couldn't decide.

On being asked if infighting in AAP is taking the focus away from the poll promises made to the citizens of Delhi, 81.7% people said yes. 14.6% respondents disagreed whereas 3.7% had no opinion.

When asked to rate the performance of the Kejriwal government over the last one month, a massive 55.61% people gave poor rating and only 9.69% termed it excellent. 10.42% respondents said the government performed good whereas 17.17% rated it average. 7.11% respondents had no opinion.