Event
Seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs merge with the BJP
Raghav Chadha and six other Aam Aadmi Party members of the Rajya Sabha, six of them from Punjab, announce a merger with the BJP; the Chairman accepts it on 27 April.
Who: Seven of the Aam Aadmi Party's ten Rajya Sabha members: Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, Rajinder Gupta and Swati Maliwal. Maliwal is from Delhi; the other six were elected from Punjab, where AAP governs under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann (The Week, Scroll). Sanjay Singh, who leads AAP's Rajya Sabha group, led the opposition to the move, and he, N. D. Gupta and Balbir Singh Seechewal are the three AAP members who remain (The Quint).
What: On Friday 24 April 2026 Chadha, standing with Pathak and Mittal, announced that seven of AAP's ten Rajya Sabha MPs were merging with the BJP, and said a letter had gone to the Rajya Sabha Chairperson. He claimed the backing of two-thirds of the party's members, the share the Tenth Schedule (the anti-defection law) accepts for a merger. Chadha said AAP had deviated from its principles and that he had long felt he was "the right man in the wrong party". Sanjay Singh replied that the seven had "backstabbed the people of Punjab" and called it "Operation Lotus", the opposition's name for alleged BJP efforts to break up rival parties. Two earlier signs of strain had shown: on 2 April Mittal replaced Chadha as AAP's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, and on 15 April the Enforcement Directorate raided Mittal's home and other premises in Punjab and Haryana over alleged foreign exchange violations. On Monday 27 April Chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan accepted the merger, taking the BJP to 113 of 245 seats and AAP down to three, while an AAP petition from Sanjay Singh seeking disqualification of the seven was pending. On 5 May Mann met President Droupadi Murmu with papers signed by all AAP MLAs from Punjab, asking her to cancel the six Punjab members' seats. He said there is a difference between "selected" and "elected".
Where: The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, with the political fallout in Punjab.
Why it mattered: AAP lost six of its Punjab members of the upper house to the BJP before the Punjab Assembly elections due in early 2027. The Chairman's quick recognition of the merger left AAP's challenge to a petition that was still undecided, and The Quint reported protests in Punjab against the defecting MPs. The Week, reading the May 2026 civic poll results, treated AAP's showing as resilience despite the defection.
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Sources
- AAP MP Raghav Chadha says Rajya Sabha legislature party has split, 7 MPs to join BJP, Scroll.in. scroll.in
- BJP strength in Rajya Sabha rises to 113 as Chairman accepts merger of 7 AAP MPs, The Week. theweek.in
- Rajya Sabha Chair Accepts Raghav Chadha And AAP Rebels' Merger With BJP, The Quint. thequint.com
- Punjab CM Mann meets Prez Murmu, demands cancelling membership of 6 RS MPs from state, Daily Excelsior. dailyexcelsior.com
- Two states, two signals: What Punjab and Himachal local body polls reveal about upcoming assembly election battles, The Week. theweek.in
- Why Raghav Chadha, 6 AAP MPs who joined BJP won't lose Rajya Sabha seats under anti-defection law (24 April 2026), The Week. theweek.in