Indian state of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said AAP got 67 seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly by God's grace because after three years, 20 of his party's MLAs were going to be declared disqualified.
"I have always said that it was God's grace. He also knew that after three years these people would declare 20 of our MLAs disqualified. That's why he gave us 67 seats out of 70 in the Delhi Assembly polls," he said, in a statement on the Aam Aadmi Party's Twitter handle.
His remarks came after President Ram Nath Kovind approved Election Commission's recommendation to disqualify 20 AAP MLAs on the charges of holding 'office of profit'.
Quickly after the approval, the Union Law and Justice Ministry issued a notification saying that the President has held that the 20 members of Delhi Legislative Assembly stand disqualified under 15 (1) (a) of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) act.
These 20 MLAs are Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, Sanjeev Jha, Rajesh Gupta, Kailash Gehlot, Vijendra Garg, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Madan Lal Khufiya, Shiv Charan Goyal, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Rajesh Rishi, Anil Kumar, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Sukhvir Singh Dala, Manoj Kumar, Nitin Tyagi and Jarnail Singh.
The Election Commission on Friday recommended disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs for holding office of profit as Parliamentary Secretaries.
It gave its opinion to the President on a complaint by advocate Prashant Patel, a member of the Hindu Legal Cell, in June 2015, who petitioned then President Pranab Mukherjee alleging illegality in the appointment of Parliamentary Secretaries.
The application by Patel said 21 AAP MLAs, including Jarnail Singh (Rajouri Garden) who resigned to contest the Punjab Assembly polls last year, were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries to Ministers in the Delhi government in violation of the Constitution.
"They (BJP-led Centre) have tremendously victimised us by imposing fake cases on our MLAs. They conducted CBI raids on me and didn't get anything and today they declared 20 of our MLAs disqualified," Kejriwal said in another tweet.
He said the party will now approach the High Court against this "extremely unconstitutional, unethical and biased decision of the EC".
"If required we will go to the Supreme Court. The Constitution is supreme and is the law of the land and has been protected by our Judiciary time and again."
