New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan on Monday officially accepted the seven rebel Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs joining the BJP, but AAP said it will press on for their disqualification under the anti-defection law and is prepared to move court on the issue.
With this, the strength of Arvind Kejriwal-led party in the Rajya Sabha is reduced to three from 10, while the BJP’s tally has increased to 113 in the 245-member House after the Secretariat included the seven MPs in the list of BJP members.
The seven MPs, six of them from Punjab, had on Friday petitioned the Chairman of the Upper House to be treated as BJP MPs after their merger.
“Hon’ble Chairman Rajya Sabha Shri CP Radhakrishnan Ji has accepted the merger of 7 AAP MPs with the BJP,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on X, adding they are now members of the BJP Parliamentary Party.
The minister welcomed the seven MPs into the BJP and said they have bid goodbye to the “Tukde-Tukde INDI Alliance”.
“Welcome to nation-building NDA under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji and goodbye to Tukde-Tukde INDI Alliance,” the minister said.
AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the party was hopeful that once its letter, where objections have been raised to the merger and the MPs’ disqualification has been sought under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, is examined, the Chairman “would act in favour of the Constitution and democracy by disqualifying the seven members”.
“If that does not happen, we will approach the court. It is wrong to break a party in this manner,” he said.
AAP had on Sunday moved the petition before the Chairman seeking the termination of membership of these seven MPs. Singh said that their petition has not yet been considered by the Chairman.
Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta are the seven MPs who have joined the BJP, dealing a major blow to AAP.
Chadha had announced on Friday that two-thirds of the AAP MPs in the Rajya Sabha have merged with the BJP, exercising the provisions of the Constitution.
On Monday, he alleged that the work environment in AAP had turned “toxic” with leaders stopped from working, and asserted that “one or two persons can be wrong, but not all seven”.
In a video on social media, Chadha said; “Today, this political party is trapped in the hands of some corrupt and compromised people. They don’t work for the country but for their own personal gain.”
