Punjab AAP workers protest against 7 MPs who joined BJP; Pathak, Bhajji’s residences painted with ‘Gaddar’ graffiti

Aam Aadmi Party workers across Punjab held protests against the seven Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak and others, who merged with the BJP.

Harbhajan Singh and Sandeep Pathak’s residences in Jalandhar and Ludhiana were spray-painted with “Gaddar (traitor)” graffiti by the protesting AAP workers.

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Posters of Ashok Mittal outside the Lovely Professional University’s Phagwara campus were also defaced by the protesters, who also raised “Punjab de gaddar” slogans.

“The traitor Rajya Sabha members who went to BJP have betrayed the trust of Punjab’s people. Shiromani Akali Dal, Congress, and BJP are working together to break the Aam Aadmi Party. The Aam Aadmi Party is a people’s movement, which no one can withstand,” said senior AAP leader Pawan Kumar Tinu.

The protests against the seven AAP MPs came a day after they merged with the BJP in a major jolt to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, Raghav Chadha said, “We have decided that we, the two-thirds members belonging to the AAP in Rajya Sabha, exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge ourselves with the BJP.”

Chadha stated that the AAP currently has 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, and seven of them have supported the move. With seven deciding to merge with the BJP, their Rajya Sabha membership is also safe under the 2/3rd majority rule.

Explaining the reasons behind the split, Chadha alleged that the AAP had “moved away from its core ideology” and was now functioning for personal gains, prompting the group to take the step.

Reacting to the development, senior party leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh called the merger a BJP-engineered operation, saying the central agencies were being deployed as instruments of political coercion.

“Operation Lotus is being executed on the Punjab government. ED, CBI are being used to execute this Operation Lotus,” Singh said, adding: “The people of Punjab will never forget these traitors.”

AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal launched a sharp attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party alleging that the saffron party has once again “betrayed the Punjabis.”

“BJP ne fir se Punjabiyon ke sath kiya dhakka,” Kejriwal wrote on X.