Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged on Thursday that “Operation Lotus” has started in Punjab, a day after the party's lone Lok Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

'Operation Lotus' is the term used by opposition parties to describe what they call "poaching" of MLAs by the BJP to topple governments. Addressing a press conference, Bharadwaj said AAP MLAs in Punjab had said on Wednesday that the majority of them were getting calls and being offered money, Y category security and tickets for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls to join the BJP.

"The BJP is conducting 'Operation Lotus'," he said, while questioning Rinku's decision to join the BJP.

"The BJP stood fourth in (the 2022) Punjab (assembly elections) after AAP, Shriomani Akali Dal and Congress. The question is why did Rinku join the BJP. His tenure as Lok Sabha MP has also ended. The BJP will also come fourth in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha polls," he said.  Rinku, who had been named as the AAP's candidate from Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat, joined the BJP on Wednesday along with the party's Jalandhar West MLA Sheetal Angural. The MP had earlier quit the Congress to join the AAP last year to contest the bypoll to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat. He was a vocal critic of the BJP in the Lok Sabha and was even suspended from the House for his unruly protests.

The saffron party is likely to field him in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as it inducts a number of influential leaders from different political parties in Punjab to emerge as a strong force in the state that has 13 parliamentary constituencies.

The Health Minister also addressed the purported claims by banned outfit Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun that Kejriwal met the group's representatives in New York in 2014. Bharadwaj said it's shameful that the BJP and its trolls are taking a terrorist's allegations as "gospel truth".

"This shows the BJP is anti-national," the AAP leader said, while claiming that the Centre is rattled by the governments of the US and Germany expressing concern over democracy in India and calling for a fair trial for Kejriwal.