Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh on Sunday submitted a petition to Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan seeking the disqualification of seven party MPs in the Upper House who recently quit the AAP and announced their merger with the BJP.
Addressing a press conference, Singh claimed the move by the seven Rajya Sabha MPs amounted to defection as it was against the provisions of the anti-defection law.
The AAP has urged the Rajya Sabha chairman to terminate the memberships of the seven MPs, claiming that they were elected to the Upper House on an AAP ticket but later decided to leave the party and join the BJP.
On Friday, the AAP suffered a jolt when Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni and Swati Maliwal quit and merged with the BJP, alleging 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 said, pointing to the fact that AAP had a total of 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha.
Chadha's move comes days after his removal as AAP's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, as he had failed to raise key issues against the government.
Meanwhile, Swati Maliwal on Saturday alleged that her former party had "strayed far" from its original principles, and its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is no longer the same.
Barely a year after losing power to the BJP in Delhi, AAP suffered its greatest jolt on Friday when seven of its Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha and Maliwal, quit the party.
"I left my home, lived in slums for seven years, quit my job and supported every movement. But when I tried to file an FIR after being assaulted, I was beaten up at Kejriwal's residence by his aide," Maliwal said.
She claimed that when she tried to pursue the complaint, she was "threatened and pressured" to withdraw it. "For two years, I was put under pressure to take my case back, but I did not bow down. Because of this, I was not given even a minute to speak in Parliament by the party," she said.
Maliwal alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party had completely changed and is now known for "lies, corruption and hooliganism." "The real betrayal is not leaving the party, but not standing by your own principles. People are not leaving out of fear; they are leaving because of Arvind Kejriwal," she said.
She claimed that more leaders would quit the party in the coming days.
"No good person can work with him for long. He says one thing and does another," she said about her former boss.
Singh on Sunday alleged that such defections were a betrayal of the people’s mandate, particularly in Punjab, and also against the spirit of the Constitution.
Incidentally, six of the seven MPs who quit the party were Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab.
According to Singh, the AAP consulted Constitution experts, including senior advocate Kapil Sibal and a former Lok Sabha secretary general, on the matter, and it had been made clear that “the MPs were liable for disqualification under the law”.
“These members were elected by the AAP and later chose to leave and join another party. This is a betrayal of the people of Punjab and also of the Constitution of India,” Singh said.