Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday met President Droupadi Murmu in New Delhi and urged her to terminate the membership of six of the seven Aam Aadmi Party MPs in the Rajya Sabha who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

On April 26, seven of the AAP’s 10 Rajya Sabha MPs split from the party and joined the BJP’s legislature unit in the Upper House. Except Swati Maliwal, all the MPs who switched sides had been elected from Punjab, where the AAP is in power.

Speaking to reporters after meeting the president, Mann said that the six MPs had been “selected” by AAP MLAs in Punjab and not elected by the public, PTI reported. He added that he had submitted a memorandum, signed by all AAP MLAs from Punjab, seeking cancellation of the six MPs’ membership, the news agency reported.

In a social media post, Mann said that during the meeting with Murmu, he and the other AAP MLAs raised concerns about the “‘murder of democracy’ taking place in the country”.

He added: “Breaking parties through unconstitutional means and misusing central agencies like the [Enforcement Directorate-Central Bureau of Investigation] to clean tainted leaders in the BJP’s ‘washing machine’ is a direct assault on our democratic framework.”

“We have made it clear that the cheap tactics of ‘Operation Lotus’ in Punjab will never succeed,” he said. “Our MLAs are the voice of millions of Punjabis, and Punjabis never tolerate betrayal.”

Among the seven MPs who joined the BJP was Ashok Mittal. A week before the split, on April 15, the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at premises linked to Mittal in Punjab and Haryana in connection with alleged foreign exchange violations.

Mann and around 90 AAP MLAs had left Punjab for New Delhi early on Tuesday for the chief minister’s meeting with the President, The Indian Express reported. The legislators and ministers carried placards with photographs of the seven Rajya Sabha MPs who defected to the BJP, some of which read “Punjab’s traitors”, PTI reported.

Raghav Chadha meets Murmu, alleges harassment

Just hours before Mann’s meeting, Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha also met the president and accused the AAP-led Punjab government of indulging in “vendetta politics” and misusing state machinery to target MPs who had joined the BJP.

Chadha, along with three other MPs, submitted a representation to Murmu that alleged harassment and “politically motivated” action against them after their exit from the AAP, PTI reported.

After his meeting with Murmu, Chadha said that the seven MPs “take strength from the president’s assurance that constitutional rights and democratic choices must be respected”.

He added: “AAP today behaves less like a political party and more like an obsessed, jilted ex – bitter, vindictive, and unable to move on.”

He alleged that some of the AAP MPs who joined the BJP were facing intimidation and coercive action by state agencies in Punjab.

Chadha claimed that former cricketer Harbhajan Singh had been attacked, while industrialist and MP Rajendra Gupta’s business operations were allegedly disrupted. He also alleged that cases registered against MP Sandeep Pathak were “malicious and fabricated”.

Earlier this month it was reported that two first information reports have been registered in Punjab against Pathak. The cases have been filed under non-bailable sections of the law, though there has been no official confirmation from the Punjab Police about the details.

Reacting to the developments, Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa said he had earlier warned that Mann might “quietly park MLAs in Delhi to serve BJP’s interests”.

“Now, with Raghav Chadha meeting the President barely 90 minutes before him on the same day, the sequence raises more questions than answers,” Bajwa said in a social media post.

“At this pace, [AAP chief] Arvind Kejriwal may find that the next ‘surprise’ comes a little too soon – even for him,” he saod.

He added: “The AAP and the BJP are two sides of the same coin.”