New Delhi: Is the political ambition of Yogendra Yadav the root cause of the predicament he finds himself in today? As the National Executive of the Aam Aadmi Party meets to decide his fate on Wednesday, many associated with the two-year-old party have started wondering whether he was moving too fast while charting the expansion course for the AAP.
According to sources in the know of the developments, the origin of the conflict between the psephologist-turned-politician and Arvind Kejriwal goes back to the Haryana assembly election last year.
Yogendra Yadav in afile photo. PTI
"Yogendra wanted that AAP should contest Haryana assembly elections as he aspired to be the chief minister of the state. But Arvind put his foot down and asked everyone to focus on Delhi elections only," said a former founder-member of the party requesting anonymity. He added that Yadav had his political ambitions. "From a Lohiaite-socialism background, he had his political initiation in the Samajwadi Jan Parishad, and he later moved into AAP."
"Today, Yogendra and Prashant have raised questions, but in 2014, Yogendra didn’t allow many other senior members, including me, to raise questions justifying that 'Arvind is our flagship, you can't question'. Surprisingly, things have changed today," the former member, who was in one of the top decision-making bodies of the AAP, said.
There are a couple of developments that indicate that the political thinker had turned into an active politician.
"In May 2014, Shanti Bhushan wrote to Kejriwal to step down as convener of AAP, and proposed Yadav’s name. Ultimately, it didn't happen, but it was a strong attempt to pitch in Yadav," one of the AAP’s core team members claimed. After the Haryana assembly elections Yadav had reportedly expressed his 'disappointment' over party’s decision not to contest the poll, given the fact that party volunteers in Haryana wanted to go for it.
Stung by its decimation in the general election, where the AAP had bagged only four out of 440 Lok Sabha seats it contested, Kejriwal had opted to stay away from assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra and made Delhi his priority. This had led to Yadav voicing his disappointment in public.
He had told ANI prior to Haryana elections, "Naturally, I am disappointed; workers are calling me to express their anger and disappointment. At the same time in a democratic party one cannot say that one's will should prevail. Arvind is not saying I have a veto. It is Haryana leadership which is saying that unless the party chief is with us we do not want to contest; it's a different situation.”
He had added, "My personal opinion is that we should contest elections, I agree with the volunteers that having contested elections once we have no option but to try and retain the ground. Otherwise, what do we say to those five lakh people who voted for us [during the Lok Sabha]?"
Yadav, who is the chief spokesperson of the party and in-charge of the Haryana state unit, is considered as the intellectual face of AAP. During Delhi assembly election, he acted as a crisis manager to reply to volleys of questions posed by the media, over sundry decisions of the party.
Besides Yadav’s personal ambitions, insiders feel that given Arvind Kejriwal’s authoritarian attitude, a clash of personalities was going to take place some day.
"Arvind is a dictator. Whosoever he considers to be a possible threat won’t be there in the party. Whether it’s Yogendra Yadav or Prashant Bhushan, they both have an individual identity and it would cause problem," said Rakesh Agarwal, a former founder member of AAP.
On condition of anonymity, especially due to the on-going turmoil, many within the party have opined, "Yadav has a strong political ambition, which is in conflict with the party line. If one is a member of a disciplined and democratic party like AAP, one ought to follow the decision of its leader and can’t sing a different tune."
Both Kejriwal and Yadav have had differences of opinion over the regional or national character of the party for sometime.
During his swearing-in ceremony on 14 February, 2015, Chief Minister Kejriwal said he would focus on Delhi only for the next five years, rather than going for any expansion. But, Yadav had a different take on this issue, which exposed the differences in opinion.
Around the same time, Yadav had said in an interview to the PTI, "We are not a regional party. In the long term, we want to be a national alternative. That is why we chose Delhi consciously. We want to emerge as a principled force in national politics. In the next 3-5 years, we want to become viable in more states than Delhi and Punjab."
On hindsight, it seems that all these attempts of Yadav to give AAP a national colour backfired. A section of the National Executive (NE) members provided proofs of all these incidents and demanded his expulsion from NE. The latest to add fuel to fire is a sting tape of a telephonic conversation between a reporter and Kejriwal’s aide.
"Every leader in a political party is bound to have political ambition and aspiration, more over if he or she has contested an election. There’s nothing wrong in that. Why should it be a question in the case of Yogendra ji, who is already an acceptable face? Unfortunately, his strengths like his articulate and cool temperament even when faced with difficult questions, intellect and a zeal to bring a revolutionary change in politics, have all led to a threat perception," said an AAP member working in the Yadav’s team of volunteers.
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