Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Thursday disqualified rebel AAP MLAs Devinder Sehrawat and Anil Bajpai under the anti-defection law. Both had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaving the AAP earlier this year. The duo had shared the stage with BJP leaders during recently held Lok Sabha polls. Sehrawat is a legislator from Bijwasan while Bajpai represents the Gandhi Nagar constituency.

Last week, Goel had disqualified another rebel AAP lawmaker Kapil Mishra from the Legislative Assembly under the anti-defection law. On August 5, the former AAP leader moved the Delhi High Court challenging Goel’s decision.

According to the order issued by Goel, the MLA Karawal Nagar MLAs disqualification was effective from January 27, 2019, the date he shared the dais with Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and the then Union minister Vijay Goel against the AAP.

Speaker’s decision was issued on a plea filed by AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj seeking Mishra’s disqualification from the Delhi Assembly. Mishra is the first lawmaker to be disqualified after the formation of the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 1993.

According to a report, AAP convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had written a letter to Goel on July 2, 2019, stating that the party has no objection to Kapil Mishra being disqualified.

After the disqualifications, three assembly seats – Bijwasan, Gandhi Nagar and Karawal Nagar – have fallen vacant.

The national capital will go to polls in another six months as the tenure of the AAP government will end on February 2020.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party had swept the 2015 Assembly elections winning 67 of 70 seats in Delhi. The BJP had won three seats, while the Congress failed to open its acount.