New Delhi : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has sought time to meet President Droupadi Murmu and plans to visit her along with Punjab MLAs to present his stance on the recall of seven Rajya Sabha members. Mann is expected to raise the issue of the MPs’ defection and argue for their recall during the meeting. The development comes after seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha members — Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Swati Maliwal and Vikramjit Sahney — announced they were quitting the AAP and joining the BJP as a group.
While Chadha’s move was on expected lines after he was removed as the party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, the exit of six other MPs along with him triggered a political storm. Following their exit on Friday, Mann dubbed them “gaddars” (traitors) and alleged that the BJP was trying to break the AAP and had “betrayed the people of Punjab. When they did not find anything against me, they tried to break AAP,” Mann said, adding that the BJP held a grudge against Punjab after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to withdraw the now-repealed farm laws.
Senior Akali leader Daljit Cheema said that under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, action against defecting MPs falls within Parliament’s domain and not the President’s discretion. He added that the anti-defection law permits a merger if more than two-thirds of a party’s members join another party — a threshold met by the seven defecting AAP MPs. The party also accused Mann of double standards, noting that his government had accepted the defection of one out of three SAD MLAs into the AAP and later appointed him chairman of a public sector undertaking.
Justifying his decision, Chadha said the Kejriwal-led party had deviated from its core principles. “The AAP, which I nurtured with my blood and sweat and gave 15 years of my youth to, has deviated from its principles, values and core morals. For the past few years, I felt I was the right man in the wrong party,” he said. He also praised Prime Minister Modi, saying the NDA government had taken bold decisions, including tackling terrorism and strengthening India’s global standing.
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