File picture of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
The 10-day-long negotiations to bridge the rift in the Aam Aadmi Party that started after the return of Arvind Kejriwal, have failed. The future of dissenting founder members Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan will be decided through a vote in the National Council Meeting on Saturday.
After the meeting today, attended by members of the Political Affairs Committee, Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, senior party leader Kumar Vishwas said the leaders could not reconcile with Mr Yadav and Mr Bhushan. "A lot of effort had been made over the last 10 days. No further talks will be held to address the issue," he said.
Soon after, Mr Sisodia tweeted, saying, "Despite accepting all their demands they are insisting to remove AK. In public they say AK is the leader, in pvt they insist on his removal (sic)."
AAP claims that on March 17 they received a letter from Mr Yadav and Mr Bhusan in which they offered to resign all party posts if their five-point demand, listed in the letter, was accepted. AAP claimed in the garb of demands, the real intention of the two leaders was to dethrone Mr Kejriwal.
"They wanted RTI, party posts in Haryana... we accepted all that, but they still wanted Mr Kejriwal's removal," said Mr Vishwas.
Immediately after the announcement, Mr Bhusan and Mr Yadav shot off yet another letter, saying their demands were actually never met. In the open letter to Mr Kejriwal, they also alleged that his loyalists, instead of trying to resolve the issue, were in effect demanding their resignation.
"We realised that the aim of the talks was not to resolve our issues... the friends speaking on your behalf merely were interested in securing our resignation," the letter said.
AAP had been officially hopeful of resolving the matter before the National Council meeting on Saturday. This was the second meeting held within 24 hours.
The dissent within the party, which surfaced days after it swept the assembly elections in Delhi, has reflected in issues like including volunteers in decision-making and giving more powers to the party's state units, which are on the agenda of Saturday's meeting.