If President Ram Nath Kovind approves the Election Commission’s recommendation to disqualify 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs, Delhi will have to conduct bypolls.
The bypoll, if the EC’s recommendations are approved, will be held in 20 Assembly constituencies which include Dwarka, Chandni Chowk, Najafgarh, Jungpura, Rajender Nagar, Janakpuri, Wazirpur, Gandhi Nagar, Kalkaji, Kondli, Laxmi Nagar and Mehrauli.
Transport, law and revenue minister Kailash Gahlot is also among the MLAs who could be disqualified if the President gives his assent. Other MLAs include prominent party leaders like Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Madan Lal and Sanjeev Jha.
Since Delhi Assembly has 70 seats, the Aam Aadmi Party government will remain intact even as after the disqualification the number of its MLAs will remain 46, which would still be a majority in the House. At present, the AAP has 66 MLAs (including Speaker Ram Niwas Goel) and four other MLAs are from the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).
The EC’s recommendation is with regard to the “office of profit” case where weeks after the AAP won a majority in the Delhi assembly elections, the government appointed the legislators as parliament secretaries in March, 2015.
Reacting to the EC’s recommendation, media advisor to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Nagender Sharma, said, “It is a recommendation made without hearing the arguments of MLAs on the false allegation of office of profit.”
Earlier, the MLAs had petitioned the Election Commission that it shouldn’t entertain the office of profit case against them because the Delhi High Court had already set aside their appointment as parliamentary secretaries.