‘Gaddar’ Graffiti, Torn Posters: AAP Workers Protest Across Punjab After Seven Rajya Sabha MPs Merge with BJP

A day after seven Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MPs merged with the BJP, AAP workers took to the streets across Punjab on Saturday, calling the departing leaders traitors and vandalising their properties with spray-painted graffiti.

The word gaddar (traitor) was found painted on the outer walls and main gate of former cricketer Harbhajan Singh’s residence in Jalandhar, on the walls of Sandeep Pathak’s house in Ludhiana, and outside the main entrance of the Phagwara campus of Lovely Professional University owned by Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal. Protesters also defaced Mittal’s poster outside the LPU campus and raised slogans of Punjab de Gaddar, accusing the MPs of betraying the people of Punjab, PTI reported.

The seven MPs who left AAP are Raghav Chadha, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Swati Maliwal, Vikram Singh Sahney, and Rajinder Gupta. All seven will retain their Rajya Sabha memberships, as they constitute two-thirds of AAP’s strength in the upper house — meeting the threshold required for a valid merger. Videos of the protests were shared by the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday.

AAP’s Punjab unit posted on X: “The traitors of Punjab are facing backlash across the entire state. Sharp protest demonstrations held at various places against the Rajya Sabha members who fell at the feet of BJP by betraying Punjab; people also chanted slogans against these members as well as BJP’s anti-Punjab policies.”

Leading a protest outside the residence of MP Rajinder Gupta, AAP Punjab youth wing acting president Parminder Goldy said the BJP was “unsettled” by AAP’s governance and was “attempting to destabilise” the party, PTI reported. Several AAP leaders alleged that Chadha and the other six MPs had left “out of fear,” with some describing the move as “Operation Lotus.”

‘Left Not Out of Fear But Disgust’: Chadha

Chadha pushed back directly. “Those who are saying this, especially the Aam Aadmi Party leaders, that we left the Aam Aadmi Party out of fear we left not out of fear but after being disappointed with the Aam Aadmi Party. We left not out of fear but disgusted with the Aam Aadmi Party,” ANI cited him as saying.

Chadha also alleged that the party had drifted from its founding morals and principles. “Every honest, hardworking person feels that there is no longer room for work in the Aam Aadmi Party. And the Aam Aadmi Party is now walking on a wrong path that no one wants to be associated with,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.