Lok Satta Party founded by N. Jayaprakash Narayan promising to usher in a new political culture became a divided house with serious differences between the Andhra Pradesh State unit and national president Surendra Srivastava.
The simmering differences took a serious turn when Mr. Srivastava expelled three senior AP Lok Satta leaders, including party president D.V.V.S. Varma, national council member Katari Srinivasa Rao, when they publicly questioned the appointment of various committees ignoring party’s basic constitutional principles.
Mr. Srivatsava, in a press conference here on Saturday, announced the new team for AP unit with Pattabhiramaiah as the interim AP State president and Bheesetti Babji as the general secretary.
Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan told the media persons over phone from Chennai that he was pained with the recent developments in the party. He said Mr. Srivastava and his national team would take the party forward.
With party founder endorsing the leadership of Mr. Srivastava and the new AP unit, the AP unit led by Mr. Varma announced in a media conference here on Saturday that till an elected national working committee was constituted, AP Lok Satta unit would act as national party with Mr. Katari Srinivasa Rao as national president, Ch. Vazir as vice-president and J. Venkateswarulu and K. Shivaramakrishna as secretaries.
Mr. Varma said that as per the Party Constitution 14 (1) (2), until an elected national working committee was constituted, AP unit would itself act as the national party and it was done to restore internal democracy in the party.
The interim national working committee would be constituted soon and it would work to announce election schedule to hold organisational elections at constituency, district, State and national levels by July-end. It would also prepare the draft guidelines for constitution of national council and working committees and finalise it by April 15 with the approval of all the State units, he said.
Mr. Srinivasa Rao said that they hoped Dr. JP would continue to lead them as they were only implementing the party’s ideology and principles of federalism.
