Kumar Vishwas 's reference to "palace politics" is an attack on a "coterie" surrounding Arvind Kejriwal.
On a day posters calling Kumar Vishwas a traitor mysteriously emerged outside the Aam Aadmi Party's office, the 48-year-old leader hit out at the party's "palace politics". The poet-politician also declared that volunteers in Rajasthan would have to adhere to the party's "core principles", a suggestion that this wasn't the case elsewhere.
Kumar Vishwas' reference to "palace politics" is an attack on a "coterie" surrounding Arvind Kejriwal, a group of five-six people, who Mr Vishwas believes, are hatching conspiracies against him.
It is a point that AAP's co-founder had made in an interview to NDTV too where he had spoken of attempts to tarnish his image or undermine him by five-six people. But Mr Vishwas had insisted he was only focusing on the Rajasthan assembly elections in November-December 2018. Mr Vishwas, who is among the party's crowd pullers, was given charge of leading the campaign in Rajasthan after he appeared headed to quit the party last month.
That he was getting isolated within the party also came out in the interview. There were also hints that his relations with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were on a downslide.
It was in this interview that Mr Vishwas had asserted that he would not have the party level personal allegations against their adversaries including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia during the Rajasthan campaign. There were indeed things that one could say against the Chief Minister but, he said, the electorate had rejected such a negative campaign.
AAP leader Dilip Pandey had picked on this point, also made at a meeting of party volunteers, to target Mr Vishwas after he criticised Congress' Sandeep Dikshit. "Bhaiya, (elder brother) you criticise the Congress leaders but say you will not speak against Vasundhara in Rajasthan. Why?" Mr Pandey asked. The innuendo was that Mr Vishwas was on the same side as the BJP.
This was the context which the posters outside the AAP office in central Delhi referred to.
"A friend of the BJP, he is not a poet but a traitor. He attacks while in hiding and backstabs. Remove such a traitor," read the posters that also "thanked" former AAP Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey for "exposing" Vishwas.
On the sidelines of another meeting with volunteers from Rajasthan, Mr Vishwas was asked about these developments.
"We (AAP) did not come into being for these conspiracies and palace politics hatched by five-six people. We are for the causes based on which the party was born at the Ramlila Maidan. The party will fight the Rajasthan polls on its real principles," Vishwas Kumar told reporters, according to news agency Press Trust of India.
He vowed to ensure the workers under him adhered to the AAP's "core principles" and go back to its "basics", suggesting that it has gone astray.