New Delhi/Chandigarh, Apr 25: Stung by the multiple defections of its Rajya Sabha members, the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced that it will seek their disqualification from the Upper House while the rebel group hit back, alleging corruption and ideological decline in their former party.
The seven MPs also asserted that they have quit the party not out of fear but due to a growing sense of “disappointment, disengagement and disgust” with the existing leadership.
According to AAP sources, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has sought time from President Droupadi Murmu for a meeting, along with party MLAs, to present his party’s stand about the “recall” of the Rajya Sabha members who quit on Friday.
Six of the seven Rajya Sabha members who quit the AAP come from Punjab.
Addressing a press conference in Delhi, AAP Rajya Sabha member and senior leader Sanjay Singh said the party will write to the Rajya Sabha Chairman to seek the disqualification of the MPs from the Upper House.
“Anti-defection law clearly states that any type of split or faction cannot happen in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. It does not carry any legal recognition, even if it’s a two-thirds majority,” Singh said.
The seven MPs who have joined the BJP are completely “unconstitutional” and “illegal,” he said.
Raghav Chadha, who led the AAP rebellion, said those quitting the party have not done so out of fear but due to a growing sense of “disappointment, disengagement and disgust” with the existing leadership.
Every “true patriot”, who nurtured the party with their blood and sweat and joined it with great hope, has either already left it or is in the process of leaving it, he claimed.
Chadha said that every honest and hardworking person now feels that there is “no space left to work in the AAP” and that the party is moving on a wrong path with which no one wants to remain associated.
“Because of this, leaders have been leaving the party one after another,” he said.
Chadha said MPs are abandoning and leaving the AAP together because they believe the party has gone into “corrupt and compromised hands”, he claimed.
Mann used a culinary analogy to attack those who quit the party.
In a sarcastic post on X, he wrote in Punjabi, “Ginger, garlic, cumin, fenugreek powder, red chilli, black pepper, and coriander — these seven things together make a dish taste great, but on their own cannot become a dish.”
On Friday, the AAP suffered a jolt when Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni and Swati Maliwal quit and merged the parliamentary party with the BJP. They alleged that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals.
Though Chadha and Maliwal had fallen out of favour of the AAP, the move by the other five MPs to switch sides came as a surprise to many.
Mann has claimed that the BJP, which has repeatedly faced rejection in Punjab, has responded with hostility towards both the state and the AAP, attempting to weaken a corruption-free government through intimidation, inducements and engineering defections.
Maliwal, who had a fallout with Kejriwal after she was allegedly assaulted by his close aide in 2024, said she quit the party as it had “strayed far” from its original principles.
She alleged the party had completely changed and is now known for “lies, corruption and hooliganism”.
“The real betrayal is not leaving the party, but not standing by your own principles. People are not leaving out of fear; they are leaving because of Arvind Kejriwal,” she said.
She claimed that more leaders would quit the party in the coming days.
“No good person can work with him for long. He says one thing and does another,” she said about her former boss.
AAP Lok Sabha member Malvinder Singh Kang said there is a need for better coordination and continuous dialogue between the party leadership and its MLAs, MPs and ministers in Punjab.
The AAP MP from Anandpur Sahib also said the party should have considered workers and volunteers from Punjab for Rajya Sabha.
Meanwhile, social media platforms turned into a comedy zone with memes from “placement ho gayi jokes” to ‘Hera Pheri’-style confusion and dramatic “washing machine”.
Users responded with humour, sarcasm and film-style punchlines, making the political development one of the day’s most talked-about online trends.
One widely shared meme showed the famous classroom scene where a student proudly says his placement has happened, with users joking that the MPs had finally received their “dream package” in politics.
Meanwhile, the BJP sharpened its attack on Kejriwal over the new central government bungalow allotted to him at Lodhi Estate here, dubbing it as “Sheesh Mahal 2” and alleging expenditure of private money to build amenities in it.
The AAP has denied the allegation, calling it fake.
Addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, Delhi Public Works Department Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma said Kejriwal has become habituated to living lavishly.
“After he was forced out of Sheesh Mahal by Dhurandhar voters of Delhi, he shifted to Punjab, where he grabbed a bungalow, and now he has prepared Sheesh Mahal 2 at Lodhi Estate,” Verma said.
Senior AAP leader Atishi said the photographs released by Verma were fake.
In a post on X in Hindi, the former chief minister said, “All the pictures released by Parvesh Verma are fake. They are not pictures of Kejriwal ji’s house.”
“To find out whose house is how luxurious, (chief minister) Rekha Gupta ji and lieutenant governor sahib should open their own houses, and Kejriwal ji will open his house. The public will decide for itself,” she added. (PTI)
