--- title: "Seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs Join BJP | Model Diplomat" description: "Seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs defecting to the BJP reshape Punjab's political landscape, redrawing alliances and battle lines ahead of the 2027 assembly elections." url: "https://modeldiplomat.com/story/seven-aap-rajya-sabha-mps-join-bjp-punjabs-2027-election-battle" --- # Seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs Join BJP Major political shift as AAP loses key Rajya Sabha members to BJP Model DiplomatApril 26, 20263 min readPunjab [Aaratrika BhaumikWill AAP MPs face disqualification after joining BJP? - The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/will-aap-mps-face-disqualification-after-joining-bjp/article70906320.ece)[Abhinay DeshpandeEx-IPS officer Ninama, former AAP leader join BJP ahead of Gujarat local polls - The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/gujarat/ex-ips-officer-ninama-former-aap-leader-join-bjp-ahead-of-gujarat-local-polls/article70843693.ece)[PTIPunjab Chief Minister condemns ED raids against AAP MP Ashok Mittal; BJP hits back - The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/punjab/punjab-chief-minister-condemns-ed-raids-against-aap-mp-ashok-mittal-bjp-hits-back/article70864572.ece) ## Seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs Defect to BJP — Punjab's 2027 War Starts Now *Seven of AAP's ten Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, announced a merger with BJP on April 24, wiping out two-thirds of AAP's Upper House presence.* **AAP has just lost two-thirds of its Rajya Sabha bench in a single day.** On April 24, 2026, seven of the party's ten Rajya Sabha MPs — including high-profile figures like **Raghav Chadha** and **Vikramjit Sahney** — announced a formal merger with the BJP. In an interview with *The Indian Express*, Sahney framed the break as a governance indictment: CM **Bhagwant Mann** lacks vision, Punjab is "a food bowl, not a begging bowl," and AAP's top-down leadership left its own elected representatives sidelined. The defection is dramatic in scale, but its logic has been building for months. ## The Anti-Defection Question — and Why It May Not Matter The Tenth Schedule of India's Constitution bars individual legislators from switching parties without facing disqualification. But the **merger clause** provides a critical carve-out: if at least two-thirds of a party's legislative group in a given house defects, it legally constitutes a merger — not defection. With **7 of 10 AAP Rajya Sabha MPs** crossing over, the threshold is precisely met, according to [The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/will-aap-mps-face-disqualification-after-joining-bjp/article70906320.ece "thehindu.com"). AAP's leadership will almost certainly challenge this in the Supreme Court, but the legal ground beneath them is thin. The parliamentary arithmetic is blunt: **AAP loses its Rajya Sabha group entirely**, forfeiting whip privileges, speaking time, and committee leverage in the Upper House. For a party already under pressure from ED raids on MP **Ashok Mittal** and a bruising internal falling-out with Raghav Chadha, this is structural damage. ## BJP's Punjab Architecture, One Piece at a Time This isn't opportunism — it's execution. As [Frontline reported](https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/bjp-punjab-assembly-solo-2027/article70641960.ece "frontline.thehindu.com"), the BJP has been methodically building toward contesting all **117 Punjab Assembly seats solo in 2027**, having grown its vote share to **18.5% in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections** after severing ties with the Shiromani Akali Dal post-farmers' protests. Home Minister **Amit Shah** is now expected to visit Punjab monthly, per [The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/punjab/from-bengal-to-punjab-amit-shah-sets-sights-on-border-states-drug-crisis/article70907657.ece "thehindu.com"), framing the drug crisis as a law-and-order failure directly attributable to AAP governance. Absorbing seven AAP MPs — including credible Punjabi faces like Sahney — serves two functions: it strips AAP of organizational credibility and hands BJP a ready-made set of surrogates to project in a state where it remains thin on the ground. For AAP, the internal narrative is equally damaging. Sahney's public criticism — that Mann's government has no coherent economic vision for Punjab's agrarian economy — validates what the opposition has argued since 2022: that AAP's Punjab experiment has underdelivered on its own ambitious mandate. ### What to Watch Next [India's political landscape](https://modeldiplomat.com/discover/india "modeldiplomat.com") now has a live test case: whether the Rajya Sabha Chairman recognizes the merger as valid or refers it for a disqualification ruling. That decision will set the timeline. The **Punjab 2027 Assembly election** — expected in February — is the real prize, and every move between now and then maps back to that contest. Watch whether **Congress**, currently sitting out major events, tries to capitalize on AAP's erosion or whether BJP absorbs enough defectors to credibly challenge for government. The next inflection point: **Amit Shah's first scheduled Punjab district tour**, which will signal how aggressively the Centre intends to convert parliamentary gains into ground-level dominance. 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