The Aam Aadmi Party is determined to use legal and political means to confront the worst split in its history, suffered when seven of its 13 MPs defected to the BJP on Friday.

“We won’t go the Shiv Sena way, letting things take their natural course, because we are up against an adversary that will stop at nothing to capture power in Punjab,” a party leader told The Telegraph.

“There are some 20 MLAs who do not expect to be fielded again in the (Punjab) Assembly polls (due early next year). Not more than half of them may be compelled to join the BJP as every political person knows that going to the BJP will end their political career.

“Yet Arvind (Kejriwal, AAP national convener) and Sanjayji (Singh, AAP Rajya Sabha leader) called up more than 60 MLAs today when we got to know that BJP people had sent them feelers.”

Punjab’s AAP chief minister, Bhagwant Mann, has sought an appointment with President Droupadi Murmu to demand the recall of the state’s six Rajya Sabha MPs who have joined the BJP.

Mann is expected to argue that the defectors have violated the “people’s mandate”, as they had been elected by MLAs of the AAP.

The seventh, Swati Maliwal, is a Rajya Sabha member from Delhi.

Singh, too, has written to the Rajya Sabha Chairman to disqualify the defecting MPs. Raghav Chadha, who led the defection, has lost a million followers on Instagram.

The AAP’s Rajya Sabha tally has fallen from 10 to 3; its 3 other MPs are from the Lok Sabha.

One of the defectors, industrialist Vikramjit Sahney, told NDTV that he had met Kejriwal to inform him of his decision to defect, and that even during their meeting, Kejriwal had refused to believe that his key strategist Sandeep Pathak would turn.

“When Arvind was in jail, where meetings are restricted, he told his wife not to come too often because he wanted to meet Sandeep at least twice a week,” the AAP source said.

“He made him (Sandeep) the main conduit between himself and the party. Sandeep sidelined leaders like (former Delhi chief whip) Dilip Pandey, (AAP Delhi municipal-in-charge) Durgesh Pathak and even (former Delhi minister) Gopal Rai. Yesterday, several AAP loyalists went and told Arvind, ‘See, we told you so’.”

Estranged loyalists are now sidling up to Kejriwal for the off chance that these seats would fall vacant in Parliament, although the defectors claim that having two-thirds of the party’s MPs in the Upper House on their side gives them immunity from anti-defection provisions.

If they do get disqualified, Kejriwal and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia could go to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab.

Sandeep was the AAP’s minder for its Punjab unit until a year ago, chose the party’s poll candidates, and knows what leverage to use against some of them. He is said to be playing a key role in attracting AAP members to the BJP.

The party fears that two more MPs might jump ship, AAP sources said.

Recently, former AAP leader and eminent human rights lawyer H.S. Phoolka too joined the BJP, which is striving to expand its influence in Punjab, which has reduced following the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation.

The AAP had suffered two splits in the past, but they pale in comparison with the latest. The Left-liberal activist fringe led by psephologist Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan was purged in 2015; the Rightist clique of former minister Kapil Mishra and poet Kumar Vishwas was pushed out in 2017.

In a post on X, CPM general secretary M.A. Baby wrote: “Where BJP fails electorally it resorts to Raid-Defect-Reset. All democratic norms thrown to the winds. The journey from AAP to BJP facilitated by the ED. A reminder — without ideological commitment, politics is fragile and a marketplace of power.”

Kejriwal kept the focus on Gujarat a day ahead of urban local body polls that his party is contesting.

He posted on X: “Aam Aadmi Party’s social media FB and Insta pages have been blocked in Gujarat. Why exactly? Why is BJP so scared?”