Rajya Sabha chairman CP Radhakrishnan on Monday, April 27 accepted the ‘merger’ of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reducing AAP’s strength in the Upper House from 10 to three and bringing BJP’s tally to 113.
The defecting MPs include Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, and Rajinder Gupta.
The former AAP MPs have claimed that since they have reached the two-thirds mark, as required under the 10th schedule of the Constitution, they are immune from disqualification from under the anti-defection law. However, AAP has questioned the validity of this argument.
AAP called the move legally unsustainable as the merger cannot be recognised without the consent of the legislators’ original political party.
Calling the merger a “constitutional fraud”, AAP sought the disqualification of the seven MPs and alleged that the BJP used coercion tactics to trigger the MPs’ entry into their fold.
AAP is now represented by only three MPs – Sanjay Singh, ND Gupta, and Balbir Singh – in the Rajya Sabha.
Chadha, Pathak, and Mittal had met BJP president Nitin Nabin on Friday to announce their entry into the saffron party. Chadha had also made headlines earlier this month after it was alleged that he had deleted all posts against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The alleged deletions came after AAP removed Chadha as its deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha.
While announcing his decision to leave the AAP, Chadha on Friday had cited a “toxic” work environment and described himself as the “right man in the wrong party”. An older video clip of Chadha calling BJP a party of goons has since gone viral on social media.
This article has been republished with permission from The Wire. You can read the original article here.