Days after a public fallout with the Aam Aadmi Party over his removal as deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, MP Raghav Chadha on Friday announced he will quit the party led by Arvind Kejriwal and join the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Chadha claimed that two-thirds of AAP’s Rajya Sabha MPs have decided to invoke constitutional provisions to merge with the BJP.
“We have decided that we, the two-thirds members belonging to the AAP in the Rajya Sabha, exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge ourselves with the BJP,” he said.
Fellow Rajya Sabha MPs Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal also announced their exit from AAP and said they would join the BJP. Chadha added that several other leaders, including Swati Maliwal and Harbhajan Singh, are expected to follow suit.
Explaining his decision, Chadha said the party he had “nurtured with blood and sweat” had strayed from its founding principles.
“The AAP, which I nurtured with my blood and sweat and gave 15 years of my youth to, has deviated from its principles, values and core morals. Today, it no longer works in the national interest but for personal gains. For the past few years, I felt I was the right person in the wrong party. So today, I am distancing myself from the AAP and moving closer to the people,” he said.
The announcement comes amid escalating tensions within AAP following Chadha’s removal from a key parliamentary post, marking one of the most significant internal ruptures in the party’s leadership in recent years.
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