NEW DELHI:
Arvind Kejriwal today gave in to estranged senior AAP leader
Kumar Vishwas's demand and suspended legislator
Amanatullah Khan from the
Aam Aadmi Party.
Not just that, the senior AAP leadership also made Vishwas the person in charge of preparing for next year's Assembly polls in Rajasthan.
On Sunday, Khan alleged that Vishwas was working against the party and was trying to take over the role of national convenor from Arvind Kejriwal. Khan also accused him of "working for the BJP-RSS". Vishwas was livid at this accusation. At a meeting yesterday, he insisted that
stern action be taken against Khan .
"We have suspended Amanatullah Khan from the party. We will form a committee to decide what's to be done with him next," said deputy chief minister of Delhi
Manish Sisodia
, who came out of a meeting with Vishwas by his side.
When the two leaders emerged from the meeting with Kejriwal, it was Vishwas who spoke first to convey that he's still with the party and had not quit like he had threatened to.
"I stand by my party and all the people who've supported me," he said.
He added that he's not in any race for any positions. "I don't want to be CM or deputy CM or anything like that. I don't have that desire. The party needed a course correction and that is now going to happen like I said it should," Vishwas said.
This morning, Vishwas told timesofindia.com that he will only stay in AAP if the party cracks the whip on corruption and if
decision-making within becomes more democratic rather than top down .
"There should be zero tolerance against corruption," Vishwas told timesofindia.com.
Sisodia referenced corruption after the meeting with Kejriwal. "Our fight against corruption continues," he said.
Vishwas has talked before about what he perceives as the party leadership being soft on corruption. Last month, in a
13-minute video titled 'We the Nation' , he criticized the AAP government in Delhi for trying to protect its own allegedly corrupt party members.
Some people criticized him for that video he posted on Twitter. Not taking it down from Twitter was another condition Vishwas put forward this morning for not quitting the party. But neither he nor Sisodia mentioned the video.
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