Raipur (Chhattisgarh) [India], April 26 : Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday said that Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha, along with other AAP MPs, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have returned to their original party.
Baghel said he had earlier described these leaders as "B team members".
"I have already said that these are 'B' team members who have now gone to their original party," he told reporters here.
His remarks come after Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal parted ways with the AAP on Friday and subsequently joined the BJP in the presence of party president Nitin Nabin.
Addressing a presser in the national capital, Chadha informed that Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Swati Maliwal have also switched to the BJP.
Raghav Chadha said that they have informed the Chairman of the House, in accordance with the rules, of leaving the party. He formalised a split that had been building for weeks, announcing that two-thirds of the party's Upper House members would merge with the BJP.
Meanwhile, Raghav Chadha, on Saturday, after his exit from AAP, alleged that the party has deviated from its core principles and no longer provides space for honest workers. "Today, every true patriot who nurtured the Aam Aadmi Party with their blood and sweat and joined it with great expectations has either left the Aam Aadmi Party or is leaving it. Every honest, hardworking person feels that there is no longer room for work in the Aam Aadmi Party. And the Aam Aadmi Party is now walking on a wrong path that no one wants to be associated with. Consequently, one by one, many leaders have left the Aam Aadmi Party," Chadha said.
Following this, Aam Aadmi Party's Youth Wing on Saturday staged aggressive protests against the seven Rajya Sabha MPs who recently merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Demonstrators targeted the residences of these MPs, branding them "Gaddar" (traitor) in a series of coordinated demonstrations across Punjab.