BJP president Nitin Nabin (second, right) welcomes Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, others into BJP

New Delhi: Despite the breakaway faction of AAP MPs claiming that they have strengthened themselves legally with the merger of two-thirds of the party’s members in the Upper House with the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced that they will write to Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan seeking disqualification of its seven members who had quit the party a day earlier.Chief Minister of Punjab Bhagwant Maan He has also sought time from President Draupadi Murmu for a meeting with party MLAs regarding the demand to recall seven MPs. Incidentally, the Constitution does not provide for the ‘right of recall’ to MPs or MLAs, guaranteeing them a fixed tenure.Claiming that the move by the seven – Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Swati Maliwal and Vikramjit Sahni – was “unconstitutional and illegal”, AAP leader in Rajya Sabha Sanjay Singh highlighted that “the anti-defection law clearly says that no division of any kind is allowed in the Assembly, Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha. It has no legal validity and this has been clearly established in the Shiv Sena case also.“However, most legal experts, except Kapil Sibal, have been unanimous in highlighting the inability of the Tenth Schedule to prevent political defection when it reaches the scale of “merger” and have said that AAP MPs joining the BJP would not violate the anti-defection law, which allows two-thirds of the members of a legislative party to secede and merge with another party.However, Sanjay Singh cited the Tenth Schedule and said it clearly provides that any form of division has no legal validity, whether it involves a two-thirds majority or an increase from seven to eight members.He said, “Therefore, the defection of these seven Rajya Sabha MPs from AAP is completely illegal, wrong, unconstitutional and against the parliamentary rules.” He said that he will submit a letter to the Rajya Sabha Chairman citing all these rules and demanding complete termination of membership of all the seven MPs.Meanwhile, reiterating his stance, Chadha was quoted by news agency PTI on Saturday as saying that those leaving the party have not done so out of fear but due to a growing feeling of “frustration, alienation and hatred” towards the current leadership.Sources said that party insiders say that the AAP leadership was aware for the last few days that its MPs had been contacted by the BJP. Some last-ditch efforts were made by the AAP top leadership to stop at least two MPs from defecting to the BJP.Apart from the discussion that MPs like Mittal defected to the BJP allegedly due to the pressure of the ED cases, this development highlights the organizational challenges within the AAP.For example, not only Chaddha, but also Pathak’s displeasure had been increasing for a long time. Both of them had played an important role in ticket distribution in Punjab and paved the way for victory in the state. However, sources said Pathak was gradually marginalized after the party lost the Delhi elections.Speaking to TOI, Vikramjit Sahni said one of the reasons for his decision was the growing disillusionment with the functioning of the state government and the serious crisis Punjab was facing – ranging from rising debt which has crossed Rs 4.5 lakh crore, agrarian distress, no agro-processing, drug menace and slow implementation of projects. “Some of us MPs also felt that the leadership was not accessible – especially Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann who was difficult to reach and not open to suggestions,” he alleged.