Rajya Sabha chairman accepts merger of 7 AAP MPs with BJP
With development, BJP’s strength in Rajya Sabha has risen to 113, while AAP’s presence has been reduced to just three members
In a significant political shift in the Upper House, Rajya Sabha chairman C. P. Radhakrishnan on Monday formally accepted the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), dealing a major blow to Arvind Kejriwal’s party.
With the development, the BJP’s strength in the Rajya Sabha has risen to 113, while the AAP’s presence has been reduced to just three members.
The MPs who have now aligned with the BJP are Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta. The Rajya Sabha website has since updated its records to reflect their inclusion in the BJP’s list of members.
The move follows a petition submitted by the seven MPs on Friday, requesting the Chairman to recognise them as BJP members post-merger—a request that has now been approved.
The AAP, however, has strongly contested the development. On Sunday, the party approached the Chairman seeking the disqualification of the defecting MPs. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said he had filed a formal petition urging action against the seven members for switching sides.
The political upheaval began last week when the MPs announced their exit from the AAP, alleging that the party had drifted away from its founding principles, values, and core ideology.
The episode marks a major churn in the Rajya Sabha’s political arithmetic, intensifying the contest between the ruling BJP and opposition forces in the Upper House.
With PTI inputs