AAP exodus helps BJP gain Upper House foothold from Punjab

New Delhi: With six out of all seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs in Punjab defecting to the BJP, the saffron party has managed to get representation in the Rajya Sabha from the state with just two MLAs and 6.6% vote share in the 2022 Assembly elections.

The AAP had managed to win all the seven seats that went into elections in 2022 owing its numerical supremacy – 92 out of 117 seats – in the Punjab Assembly. AAP had garnered 42.01% votes while the main opposition Congress had got 18 seats with 22.98% votes.

BJP polled 10.27 lakh votes in the Assembly elections while AAP had garnered 65.38 lakh votes in the state. Congress got 35.76 lakh votes.

According to Article 80(4) of the Constitution, the representatives of each state in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) shall be elected by the elected members of the Legislative Assembly of the state in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.

Only Sant Balbir Singh now remains as an AAP MP in the Upper House while Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Vikram Singh Sahney, Rajinder Gupta and Harbhajan Singh have left the AAP to join BJP. Delhi MP Swati Maliwal also joined them and now, all the seven have been officially named as BJP MPs on Monday.

AAP has called the defection of six Punjab MPs as also one from Delhi as “cheating Punjabis” and moved a petition seeking their disqualification.

On Monday, senior Congress leader Ajay Maken said, “with just 6.6% votes, the BJP now has 85.7% of the Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab. BJP has to make its stand clear whether there is any value for vote.”

Maken was also critical of the AAP saying that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s “mask is off” while alleging that it is a party that gave away Rajya Sabha seats to businessmen for money. He also claimed that the AAP worked as a proxy of the BJP to counter the Congress in states like Punjab and Gujarat.

He said the average net worth of the seven MPs who defected comes to Rs 818,50,35,420. “I have always said AAP is the B-team of the BJP. They should change their name from Aam Aadmi Party to 'Arabpati Aadmiyon ki party (party of billionaires)',” he told reporters.

Maken also claimed that a former AAP MP Sushil Gupta, when he was in the Congress, told him before leaving the party that he has a “setting” with the AAP, which would give him a Rajya Sabha seat.

“This is a party which did not give Rajya Sabha seats to Prashant Bhushan, Ashutosh, Yogendra Yadav, but for money. So, if you distribute seats on the basis of money, this has to happen,” he said.

Asked about Congress aligning with AAP as also cooperating with it in Parliament while he calls it an “anti-national” party that has taken money, he admitted that leaders in his party have different views about AAP while insisting that it was a “big mistake” to support the Kejriwal government in 2013. That “small support” gave them “oxygen”, he said.

He also said the Congress had to face pressure from parties in the I.N.D.I.A bloc to ally with AAP in the Lok Sabha elections, a “first and last” for the party. “Now, other parties will also realise” the face of AAP, he added.