'Swaraj Abhiyan is a separate organisation but not a political party'

Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan claimed that the 'movement' would have collective leadership and not single authoritarianism

In an open challenge to the Aam Aadmi Party, the "dissident" AAP group today announced a new 'Swaraj Abhiyan' movement that would be a foil to the AAP in every possible way - with collective leadership and not single authoritarianism, transparency through Right to Information, independent federal functioning of its state chapters and primacy to volunteers voices.

Yet the group spearheaded by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan clarified that it was "not forming a separate political party" and they would stay within AAP and agitate for Swaraj. Yadav even dared the parent party to expel them (AAP is slated to hold a Political affairs Committee meeting), "We haven't indulged in any anti-party activities, those in AAP who have strayed away from the founding principles of Swaraj should quit."

Addressing the first meeting of the new "campaign", Yadav said it was decided that Prof. Anand Kumar would be the national convenor of the movement. After a daylong meeting at Guragaon on Tuesday, a select group met today to chalk out the future course of action.

A countrywide "Swaraaj Yatra" and zonal "Swaraj Samwads" would be the vehicles for the new movement - these would help the newbie group to reach out to the public and at the same time assess the groundswell for such a movement.

In the next two months 30 such "samwaads" would be held at the state and zonal level. The issues that the movement declares it would espouse are agitations on people's issues ( land rights, corruption), identify and train volunteers for alternative politics. Reiterating that the "Swaraj Abhiyan" was a re- affiormation of the ideas that AAP started out with two and a half years ago; therefore it would forge out an "Agenda for India" a national political vision.

Lamenting the erosion of democratic norms and the starying away from the basic principles of the party, Prashant Bhushan likened the scenario to Alice in Wonderland where it was decreed that "Let the Execution take place; trial will follow."

Bhushan asserted, "We are a separate organization, but we are not a political party" . Adding, "There are two things we need to prove to ourselves before we enter electoral politics - that we can run an organisation based on the principles on Swaraj and that we can grapple with the pertinent questions of the country," he added.