New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan on Monday, April 27, officially accepted the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs with the BJP, reducing the strength of Arvind Kejriwal’s party in the Upper House to three.
After this transition, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strength in the Upper House has increased to 113.
Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta are the seven MPs who have merged.
The Rajya Sabha website now shows that the seven MPs are part of the BJP list of members.
The seven MPs had on April 24 petitioned the Rajya Sabha Chairman to be treated as BJP MPs after the merger and the same has been accepted, sources told news agency PTI.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju confirmed the development and welcomed the MPs into the BJP fold. In a post on X, he said the former AAP MPs had maintained discipline in the House and had not resorted to abusive language. “Welcome to nation building NDA under the visionary leadership of the Prime Minister,” he added.
Raghav Chada posts new video, says working with AAP ‘toxic’
Raghav Chadha, one of the Aam Aadmi Party’s most prominent faces and its youngest-ever Rajya Sabha MP, explained his decision to quit the party and join the BJP on Monday, saying the AAP had become a “toxic work environment” run by “corrupt and compromised people.”
In an Instagram video, Chadha, who co-founded the AAP 15 years ago, said he had given up a career as a Chartered Accountant for politics, and had not made the switch to further his own interests. “I didn’t come into politics to make my career,” he said.
Chadha said the final straw was being sacked as the party’s Rajya Sabha deputy leader on April 2 and being stripped of floor time, effectively being “stopped from speaking in Parliament.” He said the party was no longer the one he had helped build and that those now in control were working “for their own personal gain” rather than the country.
He defended the defection by noting that six other AAP leaders had walked out alongside him. “One person can be wrong. Two people can be wrong. But not all seven people can be wrong,” he said.
AAP seeks to terminate the 7 MPs
Meanwhile, the AAP had on Sunday moved a petition before the RS Chairman seeking the termination of the membership of the seven MPs, who had switched sides.
Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said he has submitted a petition to Chairman Radhakrishnan seeking the disqualification of the seven party MPs in the Upper House.
On Friday last, the AAP suffered a jolt when the seven Rajya Sabha MPs quit and announced merger with the BJP, alleging that the Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals.
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