On Monday night, the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha secretariat gave a huge setback to the ruling BJP as it issued a notification declaring the Khatauli assembly seat as vacant.

The decision arrived as the Khatauli MLA Vikram Saini was sentenced to two-year imprisonment by an MP/MLA court on October 11 for his alleged role in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

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The notification highlighted that Khatauli assembly seat would be considered vacant with effect from October 11, the day MP/MLA court, Muzaffarnagar, announced two-year imprisonment to Saini in the case.

Earlier on a similar ground, on October 29, the assembly secretariat had declared Rampur seat as vacant, just two days after its MLA and veteran SP leader Azam Khan was awarded a three-year sentence in a hate speech case.

Soon after this, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary penned a letter to Vidhan Sabha speaker Satish Mahana, questioning why Saini had not been disqualified after being awarded jail sentence while Rampur MLA Azam Khan was disqualified just in two days after the court sentenced him.

Vidhan Sabha sources claimed that while disqualifying an MLA did not come under the Speaker’s purview, Khatauli’s case had been referred to the law department to examine whether the Supreme Court’s order of 2013 was applicable on Saini’s two-year imprisonment.