Chandigarh, April 27
Aam Aadmi Party leaders and workers staged protests across several districts of Punjab on Sunday against seven Rajya Sabha MPs who quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, demanding immediate cancellation of their membership in the Upper House. Demonstrations were held in Mohali, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Pathankot, and Bathinda, where protesters termed the defections a betrayal of the state’s mandate and raised slogans against the leaders.
Protesters also burnt effigies of the defecting MPs and alleged that the decision to switch sides was driven by pressure and political opportunism. They said such actions would not be accepted by the people of Punjab. Punjab minister Harbhajan Singh, speaking in Jandiala Guru in Amritsar, criticized the MPs for leaving the party.
He said they were elected to raise issues concerning Punjab in the Rajya Sabha, but failed to do so. “It is a big shame that they did not raise any issue of Punjab for which they were sent there. Instead, they joined the BJP,” he said. He added that the people of the state would not forgive what he described as a “disgusting act”.
Singh also alleged that the BJP used intimidation tactics, including threats of action by central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation, to pressure leaders into joining the party under what he called “Operation Lotus”. In Pathankot, minister Lal Chand Kataruchakk said the MPs were elected with the support of AAP MLAs to represent Punjab’s interests but had instead “stabbed the state and the party in the back”. He alleged that such political moves reflected attempts to destabilize opposition governments.
Cabinet minister Barinder Goyal, addressing a protest in Lehragaga, said the defections had not weakened the party in Punjab but had exposed those who left. “Wheeling and dealing politics has been the BJP’s history. Whoever later joined the BJP regretted it. We stand with the Aam Aadmi Party’s ideology like a rock,” he said.
Meanwhile, BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh criticized the Punjab Police for allegedly failing to protect MPs’ residences during protests. He said that if adequate security could not be ensured, central forces should take over the responsibility. His remarks came a day after AAP workers held demonstrations outside the houses of Rajya Sabha MPs Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, and Rajinder Gupta in Ludhiana and Jalandhar.
Slogans calling them “Gaddar” were spray-painted on the boundary walls of their residences. Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia also raised concerns over the incidents, alleging that the slogans were part of a conspiracy and that the police remained silent, putting lives at risk.
The protests follow a setback for the Aam Aadmi Party after seven of its ten Rajya Sabha MPs, Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikramjit Sahney, and Swati Maliwal resigned from the party and joined the BJP.
The leaders said the party had deviated from its founding principles. Six of the seven MPs are from Punjab. The political developments are likely to intensify the confrontation between the AAP and the BJP in the state, with both sides trading allegations over defections and subsequent protests.
