The strength of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajya Sabha rose to 113 after Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan on Monday accepted the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs into the party.
The strength of Arvind Kejriwal’s party, which suffered a major jolt following the defection of these MPs, has now been reduced to just three members in the Upper House.
The seven MPs led by Raghav Chadha had, on Friday, requested the Chairman to recognise them as BJP members following their merger. The Chairman’s decision came even as the AAP filed a petition seeking their disqualification.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh alleged that the move amounted to defection and violated the provisions of the anti-defection law.
On Friday, the AAP suffered a major setback when Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni, and Swati Maliwal quit the party and merged with the BJP. They alleged that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values, and core morals.
According to the Constitution, two-thirds of the total MPs of a party can merge with another party, Chadha had said, pointing to the fact that AAP had a total of 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha.
Notably, six of the seven MPs who quit were Rajya Sabha members from Punjab.
On Monday, Chadha released a video, launching a fresh attack on his former party, citing a “toxic work environment” as the reason for his resignation.
