The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit has expelled 87 party members for six years for engaging in “anti-party activities”, IANS reported on Thursday. The party’s state general secretary Vidya Sagar Sonkar said the decision was based on the findings of a disciplinary panel investigation.

The expelled members had reportedly worked against the interest of the party by contesting against official candidates in the Assembly elections or supporting rival party members.

State Party President Keshav Prasad Maurya approved the expulsion of the members including Kapil Dev Kori (Rampur), VK Saini (Moradabad), Inderdev Singh (Bijnore), Shanti Swaroop Sharma (Bulandshahr), Chandra Shekhar Rawat (Hathras), Ashish Vashishtha (Baghpat) and Pratibha Singh, Mahesh Narayan Tiwari, Nirmal Srivastava, Vaibhav Pandey and Vidyabhushan Dwivedi from Gonda, the news agency reported.