Some AAP legislators to support BJP to help form government in Delhi; Manish Sisodia denies reports

NEW DELHI: A section of Aam Aadmi Party’s MLAs may support the Bharatiya Janata Party and help form the government in Delhi, posing a fresh challenge to the fledgling Arvind Kejriwal-led party that appears to have lost momentum ever since it pulled down its minority government in February after 49 days.

“Several MLAs from AAP will move against the party in support of the BJP to form the government. It is only in the benefit of the people of Delhi to have a stable government now and we think BJP can provide that,” said an AAP MLA, who did not wish to be identified. He did not disclose how many MLAs were readying to turn against the party.

The AAP’s MLAs were earlier reported to have urged the party leadership to form the government with the support of the Congress. However, the Congress party leadership had decided against lending support to AAP for a second time.

Kejriwal had alleged in an interview to a TV channel that the BJP was trying to bribe eight of his party’s MLAs. “The BJP people are contacting our MLAs. They have contacted our eight MLAs in the last four-five days and they are trying to break them away. But they do not know the stuff AAP MLAs are made of,” Kejriwal had said.

Senior party leader Manish Sisodia, however, denied the possibility of AAP MLAs switching sides to support the BJP.

“The party is not worried about MLAs defecting from us. We got all this information from the MLAs themselves who were contacted. Had we got this information from a third party there would have been reason to worry. But since our MLAs keep updating us, the party is not worried about any such thing,” Sisodia told ET.

As per the anti-defection law, if onethird of the elected members of a party switch sides, it is considered a merger and does not invite disqualification of the members concerned.