Barely a month after taking over as the Deputy Leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Rajya Sabha from a demoted Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal is now one of the seven MPs joining the BJP with him.
In a press conference on Friday, Chadha announced the big move, alleging that it was because the party had “now completely deviated from its principles, values, and core morals".
In shifting to the BJP as a group, the MPs have also managed to retain their seats, as the group fulfilled the 2/3 majority condition—listed in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution—required to avoid the anti-defection law.
Echoing Chadha, Mittal claimed that the seven MPs had decided to collectively move to the saffron party over a change in ideology and the loss of the AAP's core values.
The other MPs breaking away to go to the BJP are IIT professor-turned-politician Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney and Swati Maliwal.
Yet, it is Mittal's move to the BJP that has turned heads, especially among the AAP and the Congress, which has alleged that it could also be related to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) case against him.
The ED raids were carried out last week at residential and business premises linked to the founder and chancellor of Lovely Professional University (LPU), in Punjab and Haryana under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
In that regard, AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh has again alleged that the BJP was engaging in 'Operation Lotus'—intending to use federal agencies to poach leaders from other parties and destabilise it.
"The people of Punjab will never forget these 'traitors'," he told reporters.
"All agencies are under (the BJP's) control. Ashok Mittal was recently raided, BJP had troubled Raghav Chadha earlier," said senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot about Mittal's move, alleging that the saffron party was engaging in "washing machine" politics.