A day after he alleged that senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Kumar Vishwas was conspiring to break the party, Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan today came under fire from within the party with some AAP legislators demanding his AAP legislators.
Senior AAP legislators, including at least two ministers, have signed a letter, urging the top leadership of the party to expel Amanatullah. The MLAs, it is learnt, have vowed to not relent till the axe falls on him.
A separate letter, with the same demand, has also been released by a Punjab MLA of the AAP.
Delhi Ministers Kapil Mishra, Imran Hussain, Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri are among the signatories to the letter, a party source said.
The party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC), chaired by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, is expected to take a call on the issue tonight. Incidentally, Amanatullah is a member of the PAC.
When contacted, Khan said the whole campaign was "scripted" and added that he will attend the scheduled meeting. He said barely "four to five MLAs" supported the signature campaign against him.
The development comes a day after Khan alleged that Kumar Vishwas was conspiring to break the party and had asked some legislators to join the BJP with an offer of Rs 30 crore each.
Reacting to Amanatullah's charge against Vishwas, Hussain tweeted, "Amanatullah has lost his mental balance."
A senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity, alleged that apart from his recent attempt to drive a wedge between Kejriwal and Vishwas, Khan had also "worked against the party's interests" in the recently held municipal polls, where the AAP received a drubbing.
"If he has proof then he should present it to the PAC. The charges that he has levelled are serious and if he fails to produce any evidence to back it up then he should be expelled from the party," Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba said.
Earlier, Vishwas had differed with Kejriwal on the issue of EVMs. He had refused to attribute the AAP's recent poll upsets to alleged manipulation of EVMs and had instead stressed on the need to introspect.
In a TV interview on Friday, Vishwas had said the party won't hesitate in taking a call on change in its leadership after its poor show in Delhi municipal polls.
He said blaming the EVMs entirely for its poll defeats was wrong as there was mistrust among people for the party.
Vishwas wants to usurp and break AAP: Amanatullah Khan
Amanatullah Khan had circulated a WhatsApp message saying Vishwas had called some AAP MLAs to his home with the offer at the behest of the BJP.
"Kumar Vishwas called some MLAs and asked them that he should be made the party convenor," the legislator said.
He gave them the second offer "to join the BJP which was ready to pay Rs 30 crore to each one of them.
"I think all this is being done at the behest of the BJP," Khan said, adding four AAP MLAs have been tasked for this and they were arranging meetings of legislators with Kumar Vishwas.
The four MLAs also held a meeting with an unnamed minister at his residence, he said, citing 10 unnamed MLAs who "revealed this to me".
Khan told IANS that he indeed had circulated the message because "Vishwas wants to usurp and break the AAP".
