A day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered a humiliating defeat in the MCD elections, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday held a meeting of his MLAs to discuss the reasons behind party’s debacle in the civic polls.
After the meeting, the lawmakers spoke in one voice and blamed “EVM tampering” for the loss.
The newly-elected 48 councillors also met the chief minister at his residence.
In the meeting, held at at Kejriiwal's official residence, he asked the MLAs to go back to people and introspect the reasons behind the poll debacle.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, AAP legislator Vishesh Ravi said, "In the meeting, it was decided that MLAs will go back to people and try to find out where has been a communication gap between the legislators and them".
Ravi, the MLA from Karol Bagh, said that in the meeting with Kejriwal, the EVM manipulation issue also came up for discussion.
"The AAP will soon decide its future course of action on this issue. At present, related evidence (pertaining to EVM manipulation) is being gathered," Ravi said.
Another AAP MLA Nitin Tyagi said that in the meeting, it was discussed that MLAs should introspect on what went wrong in the MCD elections.
Asked about who will be the next party's Delhi convener, Tyagi also said Rai may be appointed to the post.
"We need to work at the ground level in our constituencies and also introspect on what went wrong in MCD polls. I think there has been a communication gap between MLAs and people. We could not convince the people about the good work done by the Delhi government.
"I think people also forgot how the BJP in the MCD had failed for the last 10 years," Tyagi, the MLA from Laxmi Nagar, said.
Another AAP lawmaker, who did not wish to be named, said that Kejriwal has asked all party legislators to not be upset with the MCD poll results and go back to people.
AAP implosion?
Earlier today, senior leader Sanjay Singh said that he has resigned as the party's Punjab in-charge over its drubbing in the state Assembly polls in February.
"I have submitted my resignation as the party in-charge of Punjab to AAP's National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal. Durgesh (Pathak) has also submitted his resignation as co-incharge," Singh said in a tweet.
Today's resignations came after the AAP's Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey also quit yesterday over the party's defeat in the Delhi municipal polls.
The party is likely to appoint Labour Minister Gopal Rai as its new convener of the Delhi unit.
The decision was taken at a meeting of Delhi AAP MLAs called by Kejriwal at his official residence to review the civic bodies polls result.
However, the formal announcement will made after the meeting of party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC), AAP highest decision making body.
"Labour Minister Gopal Rai has been appointed as the new convener of Delhi AAP. The formal decision will announced after the PAC meeting," an AAP functionary said.
