Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers took to the streets on Saturday to protest former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, educationist Ashok Mittal and industrialist Rajinder Gupta following their defection to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday.
The trio are among seven Rajya Sabha members—including Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak—who severed ties with the AAP in a move that effectively handed over two-thirds of the party’s Upper House strength to the BJP.
In a display of public outrage, protesters spray-painted the word ‘Gaddar (traitor)’ on the walls of Harbhajan Singh’s Jalandhar residence. Simultaneously, derogatory remarks were painted on the main gate of the Lovely Professional University (LPU) campus in Phagwara, owned by Mittal and on the boundary walls of the Gupta’s residence in Ludhiana’s Kitchlu Nagar.
The demonstrations were led by local AAP leaders, including Kartarpur MLA Balkar Singh and former MLA Pawan Kumar Tinu at LPU, while Jalandhar mayor Vineet Dhir and Jalandhar Central official Nitin Kohli—ironically once a close associate of Mittal—led the charge at Harbhajan’s house.
In Ludhiana, AAP youth wing vice-president Parminder Singh Sandhu led the protesters. Criticised Gupta’s decision to exit the party. Addressing the protesters, party leaders alleged that such defections were part of a larger attempt to weaken the AAP’s political base.
{{/usCountry}}In Ludhiana, AAP youth wing vice-president Parminder Singh Sandhu led the protesters. Criticised Gupta’s decision to exit the party. Addressing the protesters, party leaders alleged that such defections were part of a larger attempt to weaken the AAP’s political base.
{{/usCountry}}On Friday, chief minister Bhagwant Mann had also publicly branded the defectors as “gaddars,” accusing them of selling out the mandate of Punjab’s people for personal gain. Local party leaders echoed this sentiment, stating the duo had backstabbed the movement to pursue personal political interests, with Tinu claiming that opposition parties were conspiring to dismantle a party born of a people’s movement.
While Jalandhar commissioner of police Dhanpreet Kaur Randhawa confirmed she was aware of the protests, she claimed no knowledge of the specific graffiti.
Despite repeated attempts to contact them, Harbhajan Singh was unavailable, while LPU founder chancellor Mittal declined to comment.
Gupta’s office in a statement said that the RS member is currently in the US. “He has undergone heart surgery and is under treatment there,” the statement added.
Mittal was recently the target of a three-day Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Though the AAP leadership had initially defended Mittal against the raids, his sudden move to the BJP comes just weeks after he replaced a sidelined Raghav Chadha as the AAP’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha.