New Delhi: Twenty Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs face disqualification after the Election Commission recommended the move on Friday.
This is the latest jolt to the Arvind Kejriwal-led government in Delhi. AAP had come to power three years ago after winning an overwhelming majority of 67 seats in the 70-member house.
In 2015, AAP had suspended minister Asim Ahmed Khan and in September that year, Timarpur MLA Pankaj Pushkar revolted against his own party by protesting against the CM. The following year, it sacked another minister Sandeep Kumar who was embroiled in a sex scandal.
In the cabinet reshuffle, Kapil Mishra was removed and he rebelled against the party. AAP MLA from Rajouri Garden, Jarnail Singh, quit his post to contest the Punjab Assembly elections but the AAP failed to win the bypoll. After this, the number dropped from 67 MLAs to 62. After the disqualification of 20 MLAs, the AAP’s strength will reduce to 42.
While the AAP is comfortably above the magic number of 35 required to hold majority in the House, the disqualification comes as a big blow to the anti-corruption crusader-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal.
With 20 seats vacant, Delhi will now head to a bypoll sometime in 2018. This will be a mini Assembly election of sorts and will be seen as a litmus test of the Kejriwal government.
If its performance in the 2017 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections is anything to go by, where it was trounced by the BJP, the AAP may end up losing a large number of the 20 seats in question. This would give BJP a greater foothold in the aAssembly and even the Congress, which failed to win even a single seat in 2015, is eyeing a political opportunit.
Delhi Congress Pradesh Committee (DPCC) President Ajay Maken, hours after news of the disqualification broke, called for Kejriwal’s resignation as CM.
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