Patna,(BiharTimes): The Janata Dal (United) on Sunday sought disqualification of four of the 18 rebel MLAs for cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha by-polls held on June 19.

They are Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, Neeraj Kumar Bablu, Ravindra Rai and Rahul Sharma.

Ravindra Rai, who has already been suspended from the party, is in New Delhi, where he said he would meet the Union home minister, Rajnath Singh.

However, the party is adopting soft postures towards the rest as taking action against all of them may land it in further trouble and bring it to minority.

Interestingly, the party has excluded even the Digha MLA, Poonam Devi, from the disqualification list, when the fact is that she is a very vocal critic of former chief minister Nitish Kumar.

While talking to the media on Monday chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said that indiscipline would not be tolerated but added that no action should be taken in a hurry. Action should be taken against only those against whom there is hard evidence, he said. Manjhi said he would like to meet them personally.

Meanwhile, the office of Speaker, Uday Narayan Chaudhar, has issued a notice, asking the four MLAs to appear before his office on June 25. This development took place after the parliamentary affairs minister and the chief whip of the party in the Assembly, Srawan Kumar, wrote to Speaker seeking their disqualification. 

He said that disqualification had been sought because they had no legal and moral right to become proposers for Independent Rajya Sabha candidates after being elected to the House on JD(U) tickets.

The leader of the rebel, Gyanendra Singh Gyanu, held former chief minister Nitish Kumar responsible fo this move and said that he would take legal recourse against the move. 

Another rebel, Rahul Sharma, son of former Jehanabd MP, Jagdish Sharma, called it a pressure tactic.