In a stunning turn of events, seven Rajya Sabha MPs from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), dealing a severe blow to the party's Punjab story.
The MPs, including Ashok Mittal, Raghav Chadha, Swati Maliwal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, and Vikramjit Sahney, 'merged' into the BJP on Thursday, in the most consequential single-day exodus in the party's history.
The exits come after an Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid on Mittal's residence and the Lovely Professional University campus in Punjab, linked to alleged financial irregularities involving business entities associated with the Lovely Group.
AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal had reportedly called the MPs to his home on Friday evening in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the walkout, but that meeting never happened.
Kejriwal had been living in Mittal's official MP bungalow at 5 Ferozeshah Road, near the AAP headquarters, along with his family, since last year. He vacated the house on Friday and shifted to a Type-VII government bungalow in Lodhi Estate.
The AAP has now lost seven of its 10 RS MPs, six of whom were elected from Punjab. The party had won all seven seats from the state shortly after its landslide win in the assembly elections of 2022.
