Raghav Chadha joins BJP, says 2/3rd of AAP Rajya Sabha MPs also merging

Raghav Chadha, a Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday after months of tension with the party leadership. He stated that his own party had tried to silence him.

 

Chadha will join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal. Addressing a press conference, he said, “We have decided that we, constituting two-thirds of the AAP members in the Rajya Sabha, are exercising the provisions of the Constitution of India to merge with the BJP.”

 

The three claimed that seven out of 10 Rajya Sabha MPs of AAP have quit the party.

 

 

Chadha said other AAP Rajya Sabha MPs who are joining the BJP are Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni, Swati Maliwal, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal.

 

Merging with the support of two-thirds of a party’s members allows MPs to avoid disqualification under the Anti-Defection Law. 

The move by Chadha and other MPs was met with strong opposition from AAP leaders, including Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who dubbed them “traitors.”

 

Addressing a press conference, Mann said the BJP had betrayed the people of the state by attempting to break the AAP.

 

“When they did not find anything against Bhagwant Mann, they tried to break the AAP,” Mann said.

 

He also added that the party is bigger than any individual, and that six or seven people who have left do not represent Punjab.