When Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders on Friday launched an attack on ousted Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha – a day after Arvind Kejriwal’s party clipped the wings of its one-time ‘boy wonder’ – they noted his penchant for raising “soft” issues like samosa prices at airports. Raghav himself welcomed jokes about this a few days ago: “Memes should not stop,” he posted on X.
But there were more serious matters going on behind the scenes. These range from Delhi, where the party lost last year, to Punjab, where it is in power and from where Chadha is the MP; and right down to A motion was introduced in Parliament Just last month.
Let’s go with the latest first.
Motion against CEC Gyanesh; And LPG issue
Senior AAP leaders Atishi and Saurabh Bhardwaj both referred to the impeachment motion moved by the opposition parties. Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar During the second phase of the budget session of Parliament last month. Gyanesh Kumar is accused of being biased in favor of the BJP-led NDA ruling at the Centre.
Saurabh Bhardwaj said that Raghav Chadha refused to sign the proposal. Atishi directly asked him in his video, “Why are you so afraid of BJP? Why are you afraid of questioning PM Narendra Modi?”
Referring to the allegations against the Election Commission, he said, “Today, before our eyes… Elections are being stolen in West Bengal. But you are afraid to speak on this. We all saw how votes were counted unfairly in Delhi. BJP stole the election.
He noted that when West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition at large brought the impeachment motion against Gyanesh Kumar, “you refused to sign it”.
“Have you ever questioned the attack on democracy? Have you ever questioned the deletion of voters’ names or wrongly tallied votes?” He added.
She also noted that she had not talked about LPG availability crisis Due to the US-Iran war, supplies from West Asia are being affected. He alleged, “When you MPs raised the issue of LPG gas cylinders, you were asked to speak on it. You remained silent.”
Chadha has not yet reacted to the scathing allegations, though he released a video saying he is being “silenced” by the AAP. He won as the AAP candidate for Rajya Sabha from Punjab soon after the Bhagwant Mann-led party formed the government with a thumping majority in 2022.
In Punjab, where he co-led AAP to a landslide victory, Chadha faced allegations of acting as a “super CM” despite being an “outsider” – he is a Punjabi but from Delhi. The party had defended him after he was sent to Rajya Sabha from the state. AAP also suspended high-profile MLA and former senior policeman Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who had made similar allegations against Chadha, for alleged anti-party activities.
Chadha later reduced his activities in Punjab and overall in AAP by the end of 2023–24, after initially defending the party when some of its leaders were arrested in a corruption case in Delhi. No one paid any attention to this.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal and AAP’s number two leader Manish Sisodia are putting extra focus on Punjab since the party may lose power in Delhi in 2025.
When Kejriwal got big relief in corruption case…
Both Atishi and Bhardwaj pointed to the time when Kejriwal, who was the Delhi CM at the time, was arrested in early 2024 in a case related to the excise duty policy (or liquor sale policy) of the Delhi government.
“We were on the streets, protesting, being beaten by the police. You (Chadha) were not even in the country at that time; you went away and hid somewhere,” Bhardwaj said in his video.
The reason given by Chadha at that time was that he was passing through Treatment of an eye disease in UK. Atishi said, “We were seen in different police stations in Delhi – in Narela, in Bawana. You were in London because you had an eye operation.”
And when the media asked “a lot of questions” about his absence, Atishi said, “We told them again and again, ‘No, no, Raghav Chadha ji is not scared. He has an eye problem’… But today I am also wondering whether you too were afraid of the BJP then… It is possible that you were afraid of going to jail.”
Chadha had stayed away from Kejriwal during his nearly six-month imprisonment and met him only a few days after his release on September 13, 2024.
A week before Atishi was made the CM, Kejriwal had resigned citing moral stance.
Chadha was not a major part of the AAP campaign in the Delhi Assembly elections a few months later, in early 2025. He made some sporadic appearances at party forums during that campaign. AAP lost to BJP after being in power for almost a decade.
Recently, Chadha maintained silence when Kejriwal, former deputy CM Sisodia and other AAP leaders were acquitted by a Delhi court in March in the excise policy corruption case. He was not even in the party rally at Jantar Mantar. He has not said anything on that or raised any questions about it.
Bhardwaj said Chadha was instead raising trivial issues: “The government doesn’t care if someone does his soft PR (public relations exercise) in Parliament. Because a small party has very limited time in Parliament, if during that time someone is raising the ‘samosa’ issue, it is more important to raise bigger issues of the country.”
AAP currently has 10 members in the Rajya Sabha, including seven from Punjab and three from Delhi. Chadha has now become the second Rajya Sabha MP of AAP after Swati Maliwal, who has differences with the party leadership.
What did Raghav Chadha raise in Rajya Sabha, and now
Chadha had last Friday in the Rajya Sabha expressed his love for the memes being created by him raising popular or as per some, common issues.
“You guys are really creative.. keep them coming,” he wrote along with a meme of his own on “These Memes Shouldn’t Stop”.
In fact, the 37-year-old Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab, who is one of the founding members of AAP, was active in this budget session, raising the usual, consumer-centric issues ranging from the frustrations of mobile recharge to what’s really inside a fruit juice box.
He most prominently raised the issue of how instant delivery by quick-commerce apps is hurting gig workers. Following this, the BJP-led NDA government asked apps not to advertise “10 minutes” promises.
His sharp handling of everyday issues led to memes praising him for being a “middle-class crusader”, while others accused him of raising mundane issues merely to attract attention. His apparent distance from his party AAP has also been noticed by social media users.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, was recently asked about Chadha’s absence from AAP affairs. He replied that “Only Raghav can answer this”.
A week later, the party replied. On Thursday, April 2, it replaced Chadha as its deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha. Industrialist Ashok Mittal is also an MP from Punjab..
The Rajya Sabha Secretariat was also reportedly told not to allocate time in the House from the party quota. Mittal, known to be the owner of Lovely Professional University, called it a routine process.
However, Chadha argued in a video: “Whenever I get a chance to speak in Parliament, I raise public issues… but is it a crime or a mistake to do so?”
He cited some of the topics he raised and thanked those who supported him. “Don’t take my silence as my defeat,” she said, which is also the title of her video. Before this video, he had also shared a compilation of issues along with a ‘avoid evil eye’ emoji.
AAP says ‘compromise reached’; BJP says their future ‘depends on them’
But Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann held Chadha himself responsible for Chadha’s fate, even as he was asked if the young MP replied “yes”.tampered with“.
Ever since the Aam Aadmi Party emerged from the Anna Hazare movement of 2011, there has been talk about Chadha – a chartered accountant and prominent urban face in politics – possibly joining the BJP, whose leaders are sympathetic to him following AAP’s action against him.
Mann didn’t say much directly, but clarified: “If there is a party line on an issue, like in Gujarat where cases have been registered against 160 AAP volunteers… then instead of speaking on them, if someone raises the issue of samosa rates, pizza delivery, wouldn’t you suspect that the person is speaking from some other station?”
When the BJP Delhi unit chief was asked about discussions that Chadha might join the saffron party, he said, “It is up to him to decide his future.”
Sachdeva said, “Raghav Chadha should have broken his silence long ago. Arvind Kejriwal has a talent: first he uses people and then gets rid of them.”
He also dedicated a couplet or couplet to Raghav Chadha: “Zindagi mein bas itna likh paya, bahut strong rishte thi kuch kamjo logon se (All I can say about my life is that I had very strong relationships with some very weak people).”
This couplet, whose original author could not be immediately identified, becomes seasonally popular on social media every time there is a political divide.
The needle has moved decisively in about three years. Chadha was asked in an interview in April 2023 Indian Express AAP is possibly a national alternative and how “BJP leaders are only afraid of AAP and Kejriwal”.
That was ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in which PM Modi retained power in the alliance.
Chaddha said, “As someone who considers Kejriwal as his guru, leader, friend, philosopher and guide, I would definitely say that my leader is the only one who can counter the strength of the BJP and PM Modi. A new brand, vocabulary and a new idea of politics is needed to challenge the BJP. If people like the alternative, they will vote.”
After the immediate events of this week, Kejriwal and he have not said anything about each other.
