Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, flanked by a cohort of party MLAs, set off for Delhi on Tuesday morning for a high-stakes meeting with President Droupadi Murmu. The move comes in response to a significant political upheaval on April 24, when seven of the Aam Aadmi Party’s ten Rajya Sabha MPs — six of whom represent Punjab — defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The departing members, including Raghav Chadha and Harbhajan Singh, claimed the party had abandoned its founding principles, a move that has left AAP with only three seats in the Upper House.
The Chief Minister has been given a noon appointment at Rashtrapati Bhavan, though the President’s office has granted the permission only to Mann himself. Despite this restriction, the party’s legislators made the journey in buses, congregating at the Chief Minister’s residence earlier that morning. Armed with placards bearing slogans such as 'Punjab’s Traitors', the MLAs intend to remain outside the palace gates as a show of strength while Mann presents a memorandum calling for the "recall" of the defected MPs.
Speaking to the press before his departure, Mann emphasised that the President serves as the ultimate guardian of the Constitution. He later took to X to reiterate his administration's commitment to protecting the state's interests, describing himself as a "public servant" determined to uphold the mandate of the people. Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian was more blunt in his assessment, accusing the former party colleagues of "backstabbing" the state for political gain.
In addition to the memorandum, Mann plans to present a copy of the confidence motion passed by the Punjab Assembly on 1 May to demonstrate the government's continued legitimacy. The situation reached a formal head on Monday when Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan officially recognised the merger of the defectors with the BJP, a decision that AAP leaders argue undermines the very fabric of democratic representation.
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