NEW DELHI: The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is set to witness a surge in strength in the Rajya Sabha after an AAP MP said seven of the party’s 10 lawmakers in the Senate are “merging” with the ruling party and they conveyed this to Senate President C P Radhakrishnan. Since two-thirds of Republika Srpska’s parliamentary party members are resigning, including the deputy leader in the Senate, Ashok Mittal, members are not liable for disqualification under the anti-defection law, which stipulates that two-thirds of elected party members must agree to a merger with another member, people familiar with the details said. AAP also has three MPs in the Lok Sabha.
Under the law, the Speaker of the House of Representatives will have to determine whether the merger complies with the anti-defection law.
While the BJP currently has 106 members, the NDA has 141 members (including the seven candidates). These numbers are now expected to rise to 113 and 148, respectively. The BJP also expects to add at least five more seats by the end of the year when more than 30 seats will fall vacant, bringing its tally closer to the two-thirds mark of 163 seats.
“We have decided that we, two-thirds of the members belonging to the RJD in the Rajya Sabha, will exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge with the BJP,” former deputy leader of the RJD in the Senate, Raghav Chadha, told the media.
He said that seven MPs signed a letter to this effect, which was submitted to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Following their announcement, the seven lawmakers also invited BJP president Nitin Nabin.
“I will be submitting a letter to the Speaker of the Rajya Sabha, wherein an application will be made to declare Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak ineligible for Rajya Sabha membership to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as this is tantamount to voluntarily giving up their original party membership under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution,” AAP leader Sanjay Singh said in a post on X.
Under the law, the Speaker of the House of Representatives will have to determine whether the merger complies with the anti-defection law. “If another faction of AAP seeks to disqualify them on the basis that two-thirds of the original party is not with them, the President should take a decision on disqualifying them,” said PDT Achary, former general secretary of the Lok Sabha. In this case, two-thirds of the members of the parliamentary party were incorporated into Republika Srpska, protecting them from disqualification.
He added that under the law, members cannot save themselves from disqualification “unless their original political party merges with another party.” This means that the seven representatives will then have to claim their party as the original party and go to the Election Commission.
“They are liable to be excluded regardless of whether two-thirds of the members go, as long as the original AAP is not merged,” he said.
If there is a split in the party, Arvind Kejriwal, founder and national coordinator, can move the Election Commission to demand the party symbol, Achari said. He said: “Under the rules, the European Commission must determine which faction will receive the symbol, because this is a national party…” To be sure, the seven legislators announced their merger with the BJP and did not seek the RJD symbol.
AAP has 22 MLAs in Delhi and 92 in Punjab where it is the ruling party. It also has four in Gujarat, one in Jammu and Kashmir and two in Goa.
The AAP legislator’s announcement is a throwback to 2019, when the TDP parliamentary party merged with the BJP. Four of the six TDP Rajya Sabha MPs at the time – YS Chowdary, CM Ramesh, Garikapati Mohan Rao and TG Venkatesh – joined the BJP and were exempted from disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. TDP and BJP are now allies.
Under the anti-defection law, at least two-thirds of the elected members of a political party must agree to merge with another party to avoid disqualification. The merger is considered valid when approved by members of the legislative party, in accordance with Constitutional Amendment Law No. 91 of 2003.
The Speaker (in the case of assemblies and Lok Sabha) or the Speaker of the House can take a decision on the disqualification of members.
The European Commission also clearly laid out the rules for allocating the party’s name and symbol in the wake of the split. The decision is made on the basis of the legislative majority. However, if the European Commission does not have enough time to verify either side’s majority claims, it will have the power to freeze the symbol and require both sides to choose new party symbols and names in the interim period.
AAP had 10 legislators in the Rajya Sabha: Sanjay Singh and Narain Das Gupta are serving their second term. The terms of Chadha, Rajender Gupta, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Singh Sahni, Harbhajan Singh and Sant Balbir Singh are until 2028; Swati Maliwal, Narain Das and Sanjay Singh until 2030.
AAP also has three MPs in the Lok Sabha.
