New Delhi: Cricketer-turned-Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh Friday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of selling seats in the Upper House and taking bribes, escalating a public feud with his former party weeks after defecting to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Posting on X in response to AAP leader Devender Yadav, Harbhajan wrote: “To those calling me a traitor, first ask your own people how much the Punjab Rajya Sabha seat was sold for. I’ll tell you who got how much bribe and from whose side. And how someone was made a minister or watchman to loot Punjab and deliver goods to Lala.”
“Punjab has been looted and devoured,” he added.
Yadav had questioned why Harbhajan was retaining the Rajya Sabha seat originally conferred on him by the AAP while publicly attacking the party.
“Dear traitor, the leader you abuse day and night—why didn’t you resign from the Rajya Sabha seat he gave you? Joining the BJP, which is responsible for the deaths of over 800 farmer brothers from Punjab—what kind of compulsion was that? How much did you price your conscience at? Heard the BJP bid Rs 25 crore each for traitors—is that true?” wrote Yadav on X earlier Friday.
समय आने पर आपकी हर बात का जवाब दिया जाएगा । और मैं आपके किसी लीडर को गाली नहीं दी । अपनी जुबान क्यों गंदी करूँ मै । और मुझे ग़द्दार कहने वालो पहले अपने लोगो से पूछो पंजाब की राज्य सभा सीट कितने मे बेची थी । अगर ना बताए तो मैं आपको बताऊंगा किसको कितना चढ़ावा गया था और किसकी तरफ से… https://t.co/5sd2sxQDO7
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) May 22, 2026
Harbhajan was one of the seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs who crossed over to the BJP on 24 April. The others were Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Kumar Mittal, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Swati Maliwal.
The MPs who switched have held to the position that their move amounted to two-thirds of the party’s ten-member strength in the House, so it meets the legal threshold under anti-defection rules.
Since the defection, protests have broken out outside Harbhajan’s residence in Punjab’s Jalandhar, with “traitor” painted on his house. He blamed AAP workers for the demonstrations. “It was the political party that burned an effigy outside my house and wrote ‘traitor’ on it. Common people don’t do such things. Who instructed party workers to do all this?” he wrote.
He also invoked his cricketing career in his defence: “This country has given me immense love—20 years of raising the nation’s name on the sports field. And your people think that by putting labels on me, they can change that. It only reflects their cheap mentality. Let the people of this country decide how they remember me. I don’t care if paid trolls write rubbish about me.”
The trigger for this spat was a video Harbhajan had shared on X about the alleged kidnapping of a four-year-old child in Punjab’s Kurali. Urging police to act, Harbhajan’s post drew a wave of online criticism directed at him over his switch to the BJP.
Punjab will go to the polls next year.