AAP leader Sanjay Singh on Friday slammed the party's Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal, who defected to the BJP and said Punjab will "never forget these traitors who stabbed the people in the back."
Calling the mass defection a work of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and PM Narendra Modi under "Operation Lotus," the AAP leader accused BJP of trying to break the party ahead of Punjab elections.
"Operation Lotus is being executed on the Punjab Government…ED, CBI is being used to execute this Operation Lotus…The people of Punjab will never forget these ‘traitors’…" Singh said at a press conference, shortly after Raghav Chadha announced his exit from the party, along with six other MPs.
Earlier, AAP convenor and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reacted to the development and said, “The BJP has once again given Punjabis a shove.”
The Aam Aadmi Party's Punjab unit also accused the BJP of engineering the split in the party, alleging that Raghav Chadha has been promised a ministerial berth by the BJP.
"Our party has reports that Amit Shah has told Raghav Chadha that if he breaks seven MPs, then he will be made a Minister," Pannu alleged.
In a major setback to the AAP ahead of the Punjab elections, seven of its Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal, on Friday announced they are exiting the party and joining the BJP.
"We have decided that we, the 2/3rd members belonging to the AAP in Rajya Sabha, exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge ourselves with the BJP," Chadha said.
Raghav Chadha said other MPs --Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney and Swati Maliwal-- have also quit the party and are joining the BJP.
"There are 10 AAP MPs in the Rajya Sabha, more than 2/3rd of them are with us in this. They have signed and this morning we submitted the signed letter and documents to the Rajya Sabha Chairman...3 of them are here before you. Besides us, there are Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney and Swati Maliwal," he said.