Seven defected AAP MPs listed under BJP in Rajya Sabha; saffron party's strength in Upper House increases to 113

AAP floor leader Sanjay Singh has petitioned RS Chairman seeking disqualification of seven MPs citing the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution dealing with defections.

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan on Monday gave his green signal for adding seven defected AAP MPs to the BJP, increasing the saffron party's strength in the Upper House to 113 and reducing Arvind Kejriwal-led party's to three, even as a disqualification petition has been submitted against them.

The seven MPs — Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta — are now listed among the BJP lawmakers in the 'Party Position in the Rajya Sabha (as on April 24)'. Sanjay Singh, N D Gupta and Sant Balbir Singh are the three AAP MPs left in the party.

This comes even as AAP floor leader Sanjay Singh petitioned Radhakrishnan on Sunday seeking the disqualification of seven MPs citing the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution dealing with defections. The seven MPs claim they are more than two-thirds of the parliamentary party and hence escape disqualification proceedings while the AAP argues that 'original party' has not merged as mentioned in the Tenth Schedule.

The Chairman will now have to decide on the petition after a detailed hearing of both sides and give an order whether the merger as claimed by seven MPs is as per law.

Chadha, Pathak and Mittal on Friday (April 24) held a press conference here to announce that they along with four others have "merged" with the BJP, in a move that served a severe jolt to the AAP ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections early next year.

Responding to the development, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said, it was “not at all surprising” and the “only surprise” was that it took “so long and was not formally accepted over the weekend”. “Small mercies make up Indian democracy now,” he said.

He said on ‘X’, “the ED was raiding some of these MPs until recently but one can bet that those will also come to a stop now. And the ED raids that may well have taken place against some others will of course no longer happen. It is therefore both a surgical strike and a pre-emptive action. Lotus has become ‘Lootus’.”

With the addition of seven MPs, the BJP number is now just 10 short of the majority mark of 123 in the House of 245. The NDA now has 149 members, including seven nominated and two independent MPs, on its side with non-BJP parties accounting for 27 MPs — AIADMK five, JD(U) four, NCP four, TDP, Shiv Sena and UPPL (two each) and RPI(A), JD(S), AGP, NPP, MNF, RLD, RLM and PMK (one each).

The Opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc has 75 MPs — Congress 29, Trinamool Congress 13, DMK eight, Samajwadi Party four; RJD, CPI(M) and National Conference (three each), JMM and Muslim League (two each) and NCP(SP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Kerala Congress (M), DMDK, MNM and Independent (one each). The AAP, which has come out of the bloc, also is part of the group in Parliament, taking the total to 78.

YSR Congress (seven), BJD(six), BRS (three) and BSP (one) are unattached though the BJD has been cooperating with the Opposition. There is one vacancy in the Rajya Sabha.

In the elections to be held for vacancies arising in June and July, the NDA is expected to gain another five seats and could be inching towards two-thirds mark of 163.