Before AAP defections, two-thirds of TDP’s Rajya Sabha MPs joined BJP in 2019, here is how it played out

Raghav Chadha and six other Rajya Sabha MPs – making up two-thirds of the Aam Aadmi Party’s strength in the Upper House – have quit the party and would join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a separate faction. The move allows them to avoid disqualification under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which permits such shifts in the event of a merger of two third of a party members.

The last time it happened was in 2019 when four of six Rajya Sabha members of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) defected to the BJP.

They were former Union Minister YS Chowdary, CM Ramesh, TG Venkatesh and Garikapati Mohan Rao. They had then passed a resolution according to the 10th Schedule which allowed them to move to the BJP without losing their membership.

“When Venkaiah Naidu was Chairman, CM Ramesh of TDP along with two-thirds of his party members had merged the party with the BJP, and the Chairman approved of the merger,” Chakshu Roy of PRS Legislative Research told The Indian Express.

(a) have become members of such other political party or, as the case may be, of a new political party formed by such merger; or

(b) have not accepted the merger and opted to function as a separate group,

and from the time of such merger, such other political party or new political party or group, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be the political party to which he belongs for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 2 and to be his original political party for the purposes of this sub-paragraph.

(2) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph, the merger of the original political party of a member of a House shall be deemed to have taken place if, and only if, not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger.

In simple terms, the 10th Schedule says an elected representative will not lose their membership or seat under the anti-defection law if their party officially merges with another party.

But there is an exception when the entire party merges with another party. And for this exception to apply: At least two-thirds of the legislators (MLAs or MPs) of that party must agree to the merger.

In this case, Rajya Sabha MPs Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday after severing ties with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The other four are former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Swati Maliwal, Rajinder Gupta and Vikram Sahney.

Raghav Chadha said that AAP has 10 members in the Rajya Sabha and seven of them have decided to leave the party and merge with BJP.

“We, two-thirds of the Members of Parliament belonging to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Rajya Sabha, will exercise the provisions of the Constitution of India and merge with the BJP,” Raghav Chadha stated on X.

After the merger as per the 10th Schedule, the defected members will now be BJP MPs and not face disqualification.