Another AAP Letter: Atishi Marlena Ditches Prashant Bhushan

Neutral thus far, former #AAP spokesperson @AtishiMarlena has written a letter, carefully choosing sides.

Just days after Atishi Marlena was removed as the Aam Aadmi Party’s spokesperson, she seems to be humming a different tune.

While it was earlier believed that Marlena was sympathetic to the now ‘outcast’ duo Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, in a letter written to some senior AAP leaders, she has trained her guns squarely on Prashant Bhushan.

In her letter, as reported by The Times of India, Marlena suggests that the AAP leadership was close to arriving at a consensus. But Prashant Bhushan backed out, after his father Shanti Bhushan refused to agree to a resolution.

Marlena ‘discloses’ how AAP leader Sanjay Singh had been trying to arrive at a consensus:

.....unknown to the public and our volunteers, Sanjay Singh made a remarkable effort, leaving no stone unturned for everyone to come to an agreement... by the 26th (March), Sanjay bhai had succeeded in bringing a consensus that promised a collective apology from the leadership of the party, time-bound institutional changes under Prithvi’s leadership and six new, neutral and credible members in the national executive.

When I found out the final reason for the refusal of this agreement, I was appalled... The same Prashant Bhushan who can take on the strongest forces in this country did not agree to something in the larger interests of the party because his father said `no’, because Shanti Bhushan ji said he would leave the family home.

– Excerpts From Atishi Marlena Letter

When contacted, Prashant Bhushan had no comment to offer on the claims made by Marlena in her letter.

However, even as she did take on Bhushan, Marlena also had tough words for the manner in which her colleagues in AAP handled the crisis:

...when Sanjay Bhai’s consensus building broke down because of Prashant ji’s actions, all of you repeatedly said in public that talks broke down on a matter of principle, that the other side was not serious about the negotiations. So when you presented a onesided picture in the public domain and did not share this truth, people were misled to believe that the party was not ready to work on any of these issues. This is just wrong.
–Atishi Marlena

Clearing the air, Marlena states that people such as herself, who had remained neutral through the dispute, had been looked upon with suspicion from both camps.

While she states that she would continue holding Yadav and Bhushan “in the highest regard,” she states that they had vastly divergent paths, and hoped they would not come to a point of confrontation again in the future.