Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: A day after seven AAP MPs, six from Punjab, switched to the BJP, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann sought an appointment to meet President Droupadi Murmu. He is expected to meet her along with party legislators from the state to seek the “recall” of these MPs.The development comes after AAP faced a major setback when Raghav Chadha, along with six other parliamentarians, left the party and decided to merge with the BJP.At a press conference on Friday, Chadha said the decision came after MPs felt that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals. He also referred to himself as the “right man in the wrong party” while announcing the move.“We have decided that we, the 2/3rd members belonging to the AAP in Rajya Sabha, exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge ourselves with the BJP,” he said at the Constitution Club in Delhi.The reported exit includes several prominent names such as Swati Maliwal, cricketer-turned-Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta and Vikramjit Singh Sahney, among others.Meanwhile, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said he will write to the Rajya Sabha Chairman demanding disqualification of three MPs under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with disqualification on grounds of defection. In a post on X, he said, “I will submit a letter to the Hon’ble Rajya Sabha Chairman, in which a demand will be made to declare Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, and Sandeep Pathak disqualified from Rajya Sabha membership for joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as this is tantamount to voluntarily relinquishing membership of their original party under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.”
