The Aam Aadmi Party is facing a severe crisis in the upper house of parliament as a mass internal revolt reshapes the national political map ten months before the Punjab assembly elections. On April 24, 2026, seven of the party’s ten Rajya Sabha MPs orchestrated a defection to merge with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Raghav Chadha triggered the exodus when he formally resigned from AAP. He announced the move during press conference statements detailing his departure, where he declared he had become “the right man in the wrong party.” He accused AAP leadership of abandoning its anti-corruption roots and silencing dissenting voices.
Six other senior leaders walked out alongside him. The roster of seven lawmakers includes former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, and Ashok Mittal.
The breaking point follows a year of friction between Chadha and the AAP high command. The rift escalated in April after he was removed as deputy leader in the upper house. Party leadership handed that title to Mittal and accused Chadha of adopting a soft stance toward the Centre by skipping protests.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal reacted immediately to the departures. He labeled the defection a coordinated “Operation Lotus” by the BJP. Kejriwal said the rival party had “once again given Punjabis a shove.”
How the Tenth Schedule Protects the Rebel Faction
The decision to coordinate a simultaneous exit of seven MPs was a deliberate constitutional maneuver. Indian law prevents elected representatives from switching sides without penalties.
By moving as a unified bloc of seven, Chadha and his allies successfully cleared the two-thirds majority threshold required by the mechanisms of the anti-defection law. This specific mathematical threshold legally shields the rebel lawmakers from disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.
They will retain their current Rajya Sabha seats while formally merging with the BJP. This shift drastically diminishes AAP’s national parliamentary footprint and grants the BJP legislative leverage ahead of state elections.