New Delhi, 27 April (H.S.):

The Congress party has termed the merger of seven rebel MPs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) into the BJP—cleared by Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan—a “betrayal of the people’s mandate.” At a press conference at the party headquarters in New Delhi, Congress treasurer Ajay Maken said these MPs have now been formally re‑categorised from AAP to BJP, and the Rajya Sabha has notified the change in their membership.

Maken pointed out that in the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections, the BJP received only 6.6% of the vote and managed to win just two seats, yet the party now holds around 85.7% of the Rajya Sabha representation from Punjab, with six out of its seven members belonging to the BJP. He asked how Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP leadership will explain to the people of Punjab why a party that secured such a small share in the state elections now dominates the Upper House from the state.

Accusing the BJP of exploiting AAP, Maken claimed that the former ruling party in Delhi is essentially the “B‑team” of the BJP and that its leaders are “traitors to the nation.” He alleged that instead of sending truly qualified people to the Rajya Sabha, AAP chose wealthy individuals based on money, citing Sushil Gupta, who left Congress in 2017 to join AAP and later became a Rajya Sabha member. Maken said that the affidavits of the seven AAP MPs show their average net worth exceeds ₹818 crore, branding the party as a “party of billionaires.”

Linking the move to Punjab’s volatile situation, Maken claimed that the state is witnessing gang wars, drone‑aided drug trafficking, and conditions resembling those of the 1980s, when separatist forces were active. He argued that drug‑related crime often rises before secessionist movements gain strength, and accused the BJP of doing in Punjab exactly what separatist forces seek to prove—that the state can be destabilised from within.

Maken further alleged that Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP and the BJP are in a tacit understanding designed to hurt the Congress. He claimed that when the BJP could not directly damage former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, it used AAP as a “proxy” to target them politically. He added that AAP now contests elections in seats where there is a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP, simply to split the anti‑BJP vote and weaken the Congress.

By framing the AAP‑to‑BJP migration as a moral and institutional betrayal, the Congress is trying to galvanise anti‑incumbency sentiment in Punjab and among urban voters ahead of the next national and state‑level polls.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar