Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday launched a sharp political attack on the seven former Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MPs who quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, calling them “traitors” and mocking their political relevance after the dramatic split.

A day after former AAP MPs including Raghav Chadha, Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Vikram Sahney and Rajinder Gupta announced their merger with the BJP, Mann took to social media to ridicule the rebel leaders with a metaphor suggesting that they are insignificant outside the party.

In a post on X, Mann wrote in Punjabi that ingredients like ginger, garlic, cumin, fenugreek, red chilli, black pepper and coriander together can make a dish flavorful, but individually they cannot become the dish itself — an indirect jab at the seven defectors.

The remarks signaled the Punjab Chief Minister’s attempt to downplay the political impact of the resignations even as the defections triggered one of the biggest crises in AAP’s parliamentary history.

Earlier, addressing reporters, Mann directly branded the former MPs as “traitors” and accused them of abandoning Punjab for political gains.

“The seven MPs who are joining the BJP don't represent Punjab, they are traitors... They won't get anything in the BJP also,” Mann said while attacking the defectors.

He further alleged that the BJP’s political strategy is to weaken and destroy regional allies by engineering defections and destabilising rival governments.

“The BJP finishes the party with which they ally... The people of Punjab support me wholeheartedly. They have a problem with the development of Punjab,” Mann said.

Escalating the attack on the BJP, Mann accused the party of using what he called a political “washing machine” to absorb leaders from rival parties after luring them away.

“BJP has betrayed Punjab. They have lured some of our MPs into their side. The same ‘washing machine’ will be used here that works for Sharad Pawar’s party, that works for Uddhav Thackeray’s party, and that works for Congress as well,” he said.

The public outburst by Mann highlights the deepening political confrontation between AAP and the BJP after the mass defection of seven Rajya Sabha MPs dealt a severe blow to the party’s national standing.

The BJP’s move to welcome several senior AAP leaders into its fold has intensified pressure on the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, who is already facing mounting criticism after the party’s sharp fall in Rajya Sabha numbers.