Feud over Kumar Vishwas in AAP deepens

New Delhi: The crisis within the Aam Admi Party (AAP) deepened further on Saturday with senior leader Kumar Vishwas hitting out at its “palace politics”, even as posters came up outside its headquarters dubbing him a “friend of the BJP” and a “traitor”.

Mr Vishwas, who was recently appointed the party’s Rajasthan affairs in-charge, made a pointed remark that he would ensure the workers under him adhered to the AAP’s “core principles” and went back to its “basics”.

He briefly attended a farmers’ convention organised by the party at the Constitution Club here, where the body language of the leaders was reflective of the internal dissidence. “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,” Mr Vishwas said on the sidelines of the event.

Earlier, he had held a “coterie” around chief minister Arvind Kejriwal “responsible” for the party’s recent poll debacles, while distancing himself from the official party line of “manipulation” of EVMs. Drawing on characters from the Ramayana, the poet- turned-politician said that during every churning, “demons” did show up.

Meanwhile, posters terming Mr Vishwas as a “friend of the BJP” and a “betrayer” who should be “thrown out” of the party came up outside the AAP headquarters in central Delhi. “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, which also “thanked” former AAP Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey for “exposing” Mr Vishwas.