Raghav Chadha on Friday claimed that he and several other Rajya Sabha members of the Aam Aadmi Party have decided to merge with the BJP.
Addressing a press conference along with Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal, Chadha said, “We have decided that we, the two-thirds members belonging to the AAP in Rajya Sabha, exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge ourselves with the BJP.”
He added that Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney, and Swati Maliwal would also join the move.
If the claim holds, the development could allow the group to avoid disqualification under the anti-defection law, as a two-thirds split permits a merger under constitutional provisions.
The development comes as the AAP prepares for upcoming elections in Punjab, where it is currently in power.
Chadha, 37, has been associated with Arvind Kejriwal since the party’s early days. A chartered accountant and former national spokesperson, he was elected from Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar seat in the 2020 Assembly elections and later served as vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2022.
Mittal, who had replaced Chadha as deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha earlier, recently faced searches by the Enforcement Directorate at his residence in Jalandhar. Mittal, founder-chancellor of Lovely Professional University, said at the time that Chadha’s removal was a routine procedure. The searches were linked to a money laundering probe, with officials also examining properties associated with the university and his family members.