Despite disqualification, AAP MLAs carry on their official duties

NEW DELHI: Disqualified legislators of the Aam Aadmi Party are continuing their work in their respective constituencies and on Friday started holding small meetings with the volunteers focusing the by-elections.

In most of these areas, the disqualified MLAs meet the people between 10 am to 5 pm but they do not use the MLA offices instead they are seating at the party offices.

"We all have many pending jobs and it is our duty to finish those jobs. The people of the constituency depend on us and they meet us with many works and complaints, just because we are not MLAs, we can not put down our social responsibilities," said an MLA.

The party leaders have also directed that at the ground level the preparations for the election campaigning should start.

The leaders have already started meeting with the people of the constituencies and the volunteers to make an action plan for the election.

"We are hopeful to the judiciary but we have to be ready for the political battle too.

"The vendetta of the BJP and Congress against the development works of the party should be unmasked and our win in these seats will unmask them," said an AAP leader.

According to the party, the MLAs had a good connection with the people of the constituencies and there has not been any negative report against these MLAs earlier.

AAP appointed 21 of its Delhi MLAs as parliamentary secretaries in 2015 soon after it won a thumping majority in the Delhi Assembly polls.

One of the 20 MLAs, Jarnail Singh, earlier already resigned.

The disqualified MLAs include 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 and Nitin Tyagi.

Recently, the Delhi High Court had refused to pass any interim order on staying the disqualification of 20 AAP MLAs for holding offices of profit.

The court also ordered the Election Commission (EC) to make no announcement whatsoever for bypolls in Delhi until the next date of hearing of the AAP MLAs' plea, which it set for January 29. The disqualification necessitates bypolls in the 20 Delhi constituencies the MLAs are from.