Amid speculation that the majority of the five newly elected AAP MLAs in Gujarat may join the BJP, a video is being shared on social media claiming that if these MLAs switch sides, then AAP will not be recognized as a National Party. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Aam Aadmi Party will not get the National Party status if its MLAs in Gujarat switch sides.
Fact: According to the ‘The Election symbols (Reservations and Allotment) Order, 1968’, the national party status will not get affected because people leaving the party post-election does not actually count. They are elected on a particular party’s ticket and that will count towards their poll performance. So, it will not affect their recognition (as a state or national party). Similarly, in the case of a party, which does not have the required number of legislators to form a government, and gets MLAs from other parties, its poll performance does not improve. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A registered political party is accorded the status of a recognized state or national party as per the criteria listed in ‘The Election symbols (Reservations and Allotment) Order, 1968’. For any political party to be eligible for recognition as a State Party in a state, it must satisfy any of the five conditions listed below.
AAP is already a state party in Delhi (62 seats with 53.57% votes), Punjab (92 seats with 42.01% votes), and Goa (2 seats with 6.77% votes). With the recent Gujarat Assembly elections where AAP secured 05 seats with a 12.92% vote share, AAP qualifies for the status of a State party in Gujarat by fulfilling conditions (I) & (V) of rule 6A. Also, for any political party to be eligible for recognition as a National Party in a state, it must satisfy any of the three conditions listed in the below image:
Since AAP will now be a recognized state party in four states, as per rule 6B (iii), AAP will be recognized as a National Party by the Election Commission of India. Even if the AAP MLAs in Gujarat switch sides, it won’t affect AAP’s ‘National Party’ status as per rules 6C & 7 of ‘The Election symbols (Reservations and Allotment) Order, 1968’. The same is confirmed by Election experts in an interview with PTI saying, “The national party thing should not get affected at all because post-election people leaving (party) does not actually count. They are elected on a particular party’s ticket and that will count towards their poll performance. So, it will not affect their recognition (as a national party)”.
To sum it up, Gujarat AAP MLAs switching sides won’t affect the party’s bid for National Party status.
