New Delhi:

Seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs have resigned just five days before voting in the Delhi election. The seven MLAs of Delhi’s ruling party did not get tickets to contest the election again.

The MLAs who resigned are Naresh Yadav (Mehrauli), Rohit Kumar (Trilokpuri), Rajesh Rishi (Janakpuri), Madan Lal (Kasturba Nagar), Pawan Sharma (Adarsh Nagar), and Bhawna Goud (Palam). BS Joon (Bijwasan) was the first AAP MLA who gave his papers.

Naresh Yadav was earlier the Mehrauli candidate. He was convicted by a Punjab court in a Quran desecration case in December and sentenced to two-year jail. When AAP released its fifth list of candidates for the Delhi election, to be held on February 5, the party announced Mahender Chaudhary as its Mehrauli candidate, replacing Naresh Yadav.

Naresh Yadav in his resignation letter said the AAP abandoned its founding principle of “honest politics.” He alleged the party, instead of fulfilling its pledge to reduce corruption, had “become entangled in the swamp of corruption itself”, alluding to the Delhi liquor policy case in which former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia were jailed for several months.