Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha had been working outside the party line for a long time. Just a few days ago, the party had removed him from the post of deputy leader in Rajya Sabha. After this, yesterday he along with 6 other Rajya Sabha MPs of the party announced to leave the Aam Aadmi Party and join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Late in the evening, BJP national president Nitin Nabin got him and two other AAP MPs included in the BJP. According to the rules, if an MP leaves one party and joins another party, his/her membership should be terminated, but BJP has prepared such a plan that the membership of all these seven MPs will remain intact.
Yesterday, when Raghav Chadha announced his departure from AAP in a press conference, if you listen carefully to the words he said, you will understand why his Rajya Sabha membership will remain intact. Raghav Chadha said, ‘We, two-thirds of the Rajya Sabha members of AAP party, merge our party with BJP.’ Legal experts say that there is no threat to his Rajya Sabha chair due to the merger. Let us know what the law says-
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group merger
Raghav Chadha said in a post on social media platform Seven MPs have signed the letter, which was handed over to the Rajya Sabha Chairman. Till yesterday, there were total 10 MPs of Aam Aadmi Party in Rajya Sabha but 7 of them said goodbye to the party yesterday. In such a situation, Aam Aadmi Party is demanding cancellation of his membership under anti-defection law, but the possibility of this happening is negligible.
BJP’s plan
Generally, if an MLA or MP leaves his party and joins another party, his membership is canceled under the anti-defection law. However, the matter gets stuck here because Raghav Chadha has not only talked about leaving the party but also about merging with BJP. BJP’s plan is that all the 7 MPs should leave the Aam Aadmi Party and their Rajya Sabha membership should also remain intact. BJP has already done this in Maharashtra where the membership of the MLAs was not canceled despite leaving the party.
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What does the Constitution say?
Paragraph 2 of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution provides that if a member voluntarily gives up the membership of his political party or votes against the party whip, he will be disqualified on the ground of defection. Now anti-defection law should be applied on Raghav Chadha and 7 other MPs but here the matter is different.
The anti-defection law will not apply in this case because Paragraph 4 of the 10th Schedule states that disqualification on the ground of defection will not apply in case of merger when at least two-thirds of the members of the legislative party concerned agree to the merger. There was a debate in the Supreme Court regarding the implementation of anti-defection law on Shiv Sena MLAs. During this debate, the court had said that if two-thirds of the party members of the House merge their party with another party or form their own faction, then the anti-defection law does not apply to them. According to Raghav Chadha’s claim, more than two-thirds of the members are with him. In such a situation, the possibility of him losing his membership is slim to none, but not all MPs have yet confirmed Raghav Chadha’s claim.
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