New Delhi (PTI): Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan on Monday officially accepted the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs with the BJP, reducing the strength of Arvind Kejriwal's party in the Upper House to three.

After this transition, the BJP's strength in the Upper House has increased to 113.

Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta are the seven MPs who have merged.

ALSO READ:  J-K: Six held with drugs, assets worth Rs 73 lakh attached in Udhampur

The Rajya Sabha website now shows that the seven MPs are part of the BJP list of members.

The seven MPs had on Friday petitioned the Rajya Sabha Chairman to be treated as BJP MPs after the merger and the same has been accepted, sources said.

The AAP had on Sunday moved a petition before the RS Chairman seeking the termination of the membership of the seven MPs, who had switched sides.

Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said he has submitted a petition to Chairman Radhakrishnan seeking the disqualification of the seven party MPs in the Upper House, who recently quit the AAP and announced their merger with the BJP.

On Friday last, the AAP suffered a jolt when the seven Rajya Sabha MPs quit and announced merger with the BJP, alleging that the Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals.

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



Godhra (Gujarat) (PTI): Four members of a family were killed, and one sustained grievous injuries after their speeding car jumped a divider on the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway corridor in Gujarat's Panchmahal district on Monday, police said.

The car driver lost control of the wheels near Kalol. As a result, the four-wheeler jumped the divider and veered off to the other side of the highway, an official from Kalol police station said.

Soon after the accident, some locals rushed to the scene and also alerted the police. Efforts were made to pull out the people trapped in the car.

Four persons died on the spot, while one suffered injuries, the official said.

The deceased were members of a family from Vadodara and were returning from Rajasthan when the tragedy struck, the official said.

They have been identified as Sajid Iqbal Khinji (55), Ilyas Iqbal Khinji (50), Ishaq Iqbal Khinji (48) and Rehan Azgar Khinji (35).