Ashok Mittal, who quit AAP to join BJP on Thursday, had hosted Kejriwal and his family at his official residence, the 5 Ferozeshah Road near Mandi House in Delhi, shortly after the former Chief Minister resigned in 2024 following his release on bail in the excise policy case.
Mittal was allocated the bungalow owing to his position as a Rajya Sabha MP. Kerjiwal’s stay at his colleague’s house reportedly lasted for a little over a year.
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Kejriwal left Mittal’s place on April 24 and went to stay at the type-VII government bungalow situated at Lodhi Estate, which had been provided to him by the Centre since he is the leader of a national political party.
It took no time for Kejriwal to get another shock in the form of Mittal resigning from the AAP and joining the BJP, his archrival political party. Along with Mittal, others who have joined the BJP include Swati Maliwal, Raghav Chadha, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, and Vikram Sahney.
AAP Resignations
There were several reports about brewing conflicts inside the AAP, along with some of the dissensions with the party leadership regarding different matters.
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It all started back on April 2, when Kejriwal relieved Chadha from his position as the deputy leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha and replaced him with Mittal. Chadha’s sources revealed that the party decided to ‘shut him up’. In case Chadha had resigned alone, he would have automatically been disqualified from being a member of the Rajya Sabha because of the anti-defection law. As per the Constitution of India, a member of the Rajya Sabha shall not be disqualified for being a member of any other political party unless at least two-thirds of the legislature members agree to it.
