Chandigarh, May 2
Barely days after seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MPs — six of them from Punjab — defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the state has erupted in a storm of legal and administrative action. Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak now faces two FIRs under non‑bailable sections, while industrialist‑MP Rajinder Gupta’s Trident Group factories have been raided by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB).
The twin blows have ignited speculation of a coordinated vendetta. Pathak, once AAP’s national strategist, finds himself staring at arrest just as he crossed over to the BJP alongside Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Vikramjit Sahney and Gupta. The defections gutted AAP’s Rajya Sabha strength from 10 seats to just 3, jolting Punjab’s political landscape ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.
Opposition leaders have wasted no time in branding the FIRs and raids as political score‑settling. Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said the party is not intimidated by FIRs filed by the AAP government, alleging these actions are meant to divert attention from Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s alleged conduct of arriving in an inebriated state in the Assembly.
Shiromani Akali Dal’s Bikram Singh Majithia linked the PPCB action directly to the defections, calling it “revenge disguised as enforcement.” Congress voices echoed the charge, accusing Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of weaponizing state machinery against rebels.
Mann, however, has doubled down, labeling the defectors “traitors” who insulted Punjab’s mandate. He insists they deserve no sympathy, declaring them enemies of Punjab and Punjabis. The Chief Minister is set to escalate the matter to Rashtrapati Bhavan, with a meeting scheduled with the President on May 5.
For AAP, the optics are explosive: FIRs against Pathak, raids on Gupta and rebels branded as enemies. What the party calls governance and accountability, critics see as vendetta politics — a narrative that risks overshadowing policy with punishment as Punjab heads into a high‑stakes electoral year.
