NEW DELHI: Seven rebel Rajya Sabha parliamentarians from the Aam Aadmi Party were officially inducted into the Bharatiya Janata Party, as the Rajya Sabha Secretariat updated party positions in the Upper House.This comes days after Raghav Chadha, along with six MPs, left AAP and decided to merge with BJP after being removed from the post of deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha last month.“We have decided that we, two-thirds of members belonging to the AAP in the Rajya Sabha, will exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge with the BJP,” Raghav Chadha said at a press conference.
The BJP had 106 members, and the NDA had 141 (including seven nominated members). These totals have now risen to 113 and 148, respectively. By year-end, with over 30 seats falling vacant, the BJP expects to gain at least five more seats, inching closer to the two-thirds majority mark of 163.Now, according to the updated list, the Congress has 29 members, while the Trinamool Congress holds 13 seats. The DMK has 8 members, followed by the YSR Congress Party with 7. The Biju Janata Dal has 6 members, and the AIADMK has 5. The Janata Dal (United), Samajwadi Party and Nationalist Congress Party have 4 members each.Reacting to the development, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju welcomed the MPs and said they had maintained discipline in the House.In a post on X, Rijiju said Rajya Sabha chairman CP Radhakrishnan had accepted the merger of seven AAP MPs with the BJP. He added that Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Rajinder Gupta and Vikramjit Singh Sahney are now part of the BJP Parliamentary Party.Rijiju said he had long observed that these MPs did not use abusive language or indulge in any indiscipline or unparliamentary conduct. “Welcome to nation building NDA under the visionary leadership of the Prime Minister,” he added.Meanwhile, AAP MP Sanjay Singh had officially petitioned the Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan to disqualify seven MPs.The petition challenged the “purported merger” under paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution and sought the disqualification of the MPs under its paragraph 2(1)(a).Why anti-defection law won’t apply to AAP MPsDespite the Tenth Schedule, the anti-defection law will not apply to AAP MPs, as it allows two-thirds of a legislature party to break away and merge with another party.The law states: “A member of a House shall not be disqualified under the Tenth Schedule if his original political party merges with another political party and he claims that he and any other members of his original political party have become members of such other political party or, as the case may be, of a new political party formed by such merger.”If the number were any less, those seeking to merge would have to give up their Upper House membership.Hence, if Chadha had quit alone, he would have had to give up his Rajya Sabha membership. But that is not the case as the outgoing AAP leader is joined by Swati Maliwal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Rajinder Gupta and Vikram Sahney.
The dramatic fallout follows weeks of escalating tensions between Chadha and the party leadership. Earlier this month, he was removed as AAP’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha and accused by senior leaders of engaging in “soft PR” instead of aggressively taking on the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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His growing distance from the party had become evident over the past year as Chadha was abroad when Kejriwal was arrested in the excise policy case in March 2024 and remained away during his nearly six-month incarceration.Senior party leaders also alleged that Chadha had been reluctant to raise issues aligned with AAP’s political stand. They pointed to his refusal to sign a notice seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his failure to join opposition walkouts in Parliament.Chadha, however had rejected these allegations, calling them “white lies” and challenging the party to provide evidence.
