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Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Tuesday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government of indulging in "vendetta politics" and misusing the state machinery to target the MPs who recently quit the party and merged with the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. Chadha, along with three other MPs, met President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday and submitted a representation alleging harassment and "politically motivated" action against them following their exit from AAP. "All those MPs who exercised their constitutional right to express disagreement with the Aam Aadmi Party and chose to leave it, and all these incidents and developments, have been presented today before the President of India. I also want to tell the Aam Aadmi Party that as long as we were obedient, we were considered cultured. The moment we left, we were branded corrupt," Chadha told reporters here after the meeting. He alleged that several former AAP MPs who have joined the BJP are facing intimidation and coercive actions from .
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, accompanied by party MLAs, departed for Delhi on Tuesday morning to meet President Droupadi Murmu regarding the recent defection of seven Rajya Sabha MPs to the BJP. On April 24, the Aam Aadmi Party suffered a jolt when seven of its 10 Rajya Sabha MPs -- Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikramjit Sahney and Swati Maliwal -- quit and merged with the BJP, alleging that the party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals. Six of the seven MPs who left AAP were from Punjab. Mann is scheduled to meet the President at 12 noon at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Tuesday. While departing for Delhi, Mann affirmed that all AAP MLAs stand united with the party. "Only I have been given time for the meeting," Mann said while speaking to reporters here. "The President is the guardian of the Constitution. She is the constitutional head of the country," he added. The MLAs and ministers gathered at the chief .
Rajya Sabha Chairman C P Radhakrishnan on Monday officially accepted the merger of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs with the BJP, reducing the strength of Arvind Kejriwal's party in the Upper House to three. After this transition, the BJP's strength in the Upper House has increased to 113. Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Sandeep Pathak, Vikramjit Sahney, Swati Maliwal, and Rajinder Gupta are the seven MPs who have merged. The Rajya Sabha website now shows that the seven MPs are part of the BJP list of members. The seven MPs had on Friday petitioned the Rajya Sabha Chairman to be treated as BJP MPs after the merger and the same has been accepted, sources said. The AAP had on Sunday moved a petition before the RS Chairman seeking the termination of the membership of the seven MPs, who had switched sides. Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said he has submitted a petition to Chairman Radhakrishnan seeking the disqualification of the seven party MPs in the Upper House, who
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has written to Delhi High Court Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, saying he will not appear in the excise case personally or through a lawyer before her, the party said on Monday. "My hope of getting justice from Justice Swarana Kanta has been broken. Therefore, I have decided to follow Mahatma Gandhi's path of Satyagraha," Kejriwal wrote in the letter. He further said he has made the decision by listening to the voice of his conscience. The former Delhi chief minister added that he will reserve the right to approach the Supreme Court to appeal against Justice Sharma's decision.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh on Saturday said that the party will write to the Rajya Sabha chairman to seek the disqualification of seven of its MPs, who quit the party a day ago, from the Upper House. "Anti-defection law clearly states that any type of split or faction cannot happen in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. It does not carry any legal recognition, even if it's a two-thirds majority," Singh said. The AAP leader said that neither the anti-defection law nor the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution recognises any kind of split, breakaway faction, or group in the Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha, two-thirds majority notwithstanding. The seven MPs who have announced joining the BJP are completely "unconstitutional" and "illegal," he said. "I am writing to the vice president of India, and chairman of Rajya Sabha, to disqualify the seven MPs," Singh added. AAP Rajya Sabha MPs Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak on Friday announced that they are joining the BJP along with five other MPs of the ...
Defected AAP MP Swati Maliwal on Saturday alleged that her former party had "strayed far" from its original principles, and its leader Arvind Kejriwal is no longer the same. Barely a year after losing power to the BJP in Delhi, AAP suffered its greatest jolt on Friday when seven of its Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha and Maliwal, quit the party. The other defectors were Sandeep Pathak, a key face of the party organisation, former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, Rajinder Gupta and Vikram Sahney. Maliwal, who joined the BJP after defecting, praised the "decisive and strong leadership" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "I left my home, lived in slums for seven years, quit my job and supported every movement. But when I tried to file an FIR after being assaulted, I was beaten up at Kejriwal's residence by his aide," Maliwal told PTI Videos. She claimed that when she tried to pursue the complaint, she was "threatened and pressured" to withdraw it. "For two years, I wa
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday attacked the seven Rajya Sabha members who quit the AAP through a culinary analogy to say that on their own, each defected leader amounts to little. In a sarcastic post on X, Mann wrote in Punjabi, "Ginger, garlic, cumin, fenugreek powder, red chilli, black pepper, and coriander - these seven things together make a dish taste great, but on their own, cannot become a dish." His comment came a day after he called the seven defectors traitors. In a surprise move on Friday, AAP Rajya Sabha members Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak announced that they were quitting the party and joining the BJP along with five other MPs. Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Swati Maliwal, and Vikramjit Sahney were the other AAP MPs they named. Chadha alleged that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles, values and core morals, which is why he was joining the BJP. He said the seven had merged with the BJP as a faction. In th
Social activist Anna Hazare has said Raghav Chadha and six other Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha members would not have quit the party had it followed the "right" path. "Everyone has the right to hold an opinion in a democracy. They (Chadha and others) must have faced some trouble, which is why they left," Hazare told reporters on Friday in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra. AAP Rajya Sabha members Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak addressed a joint press conference in Delhi on Friday, announcing their exit from the Arvind Kejriwal-led party to join the BJP. Chadha claimed that nearly two-thirds of AAP's Rajya Sabha members had quit the party and would function as a separate faction. "It is their (AAP leadership's) fault. Had that party followed the right way, they would not have left," Hazare said. Hazare reiterated that Chadha and others must have faced difficulties within AAP, and that is why they left. "Had the party gone in the right direction, they would not have quit the
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said on Friday that the exodus of seven Rajya Sabha MPs of the AAP is a "direct blow" to the "dictatorship" of party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP suffered a jolt on Friday as seven of its Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak, quit the party, with Chadha asserting that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had strayed from its principles. Harbhajan Singh, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni and Swati Maliwal were the other four parliamentarians in the group of seven. In a post on X, CM Rekha Gupta said the AAP was founded with the slogan of 'inquilab', but was now ending in mistrust and separation. "Now only corrupt people are there in your party and not the common man," she said. The AAP termed the resignation of the seven MPs a "betrayal of Punjab" and accused the BJP of engineering the split by using the fear of central agencies.
The Enforcement Directorate on Friday conducted searches at premises linked to Punjab industries minister Sanjeev Arora and some others as part of an investigation, officials said. Locations in Ludhiana and some others places are being covered by the agency officials, they said. Arora, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, was raided by the ED in 2024 too. It has then said in a statement that companies linked to Arora and some other entities caused "loss" to the state government and generated "huge" proceeds of crime by alleged misuse of industrial land for residential projects. A few days back, the federal probe agency conducted FEMA searches at the premises of AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Kumar Mittal and his educational institutions in Punjab and Haryana.
As the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids against AAP leader Ashok Kumar Mittal, the party's national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said the BJP has started its "preparations" for the upcoming poll in Punjab by using central agencies. The ED on Wednesday conducted raids at the business and residential premises of AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Kumar Mittal in Punjab and Haryana as part of a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), officials said. In a post on X in Hindi, Kejriwal said, "Modi ji has started preparations for the elections in Punjab. But, the people of Punjab will not tolerate this... they would give a befitting reply to the BJP." About 10 locations in Jalandhar and Gurugram are being covered under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). This includes the premises of the Phagwara-based Lovely Professional University (LPU) and two linked educational institutions named Tetr College of Business and Masters Union College of Business located in .
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday conducted raids at business entities linked to AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal in Punjab as part of a FEMA probe, offiicials said. Mittal, a 61-year-old businessman and educationist who heads the Lovely Group including an university by this name, was recently made the deputy leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Rajya Sabha, replacing Raghav Chadha. Officials said the searches are being conducted at multiple business entities linked to Mittal in Jalandhar and Phagwara apart from some other locations. The action is being undertaken under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), they said.
"I go to Parliament to create impact, not ruckus," said Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Saturday as he rejected allegations levelled against him by the Aam Aadmi Party, calling them "false" and part of a "coordinated campaign". In a video, Chadha dismissed claims that he did not join opposition walkouts, terming the charge a "blatant lie". He challenged his detractors to cite even a single instance where he failed to participate and said parliamentary proceedings are recorded through CCTV cameras. Refuting another allegation that he refused to sign a motion related to the Chief Election Commissioner, Chadha said no party leader had asked him, either formally or informally, to sign it. He added that several other MPs from his party had also not signed the motion. The MP said his focus in Parliament has been on raising public issues such as GST, income tax, air pollution in Delhi, water concerns in Punjab, public healthcare, education, railway passenger issues, menstrual health, ...
The AAP on Friday hit back at party MP Raghav Chadha, accusing him of shying away from raising issues against the Centre in Parliament and instead engaging in "soft PR". Delhi Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) President Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that Chadha failed to toe the party's line on several matters in Parliament and did not join opposition walkouts on key issues. "We all are soldiers of Arvind Kejriwal, the Centre doesn't care about soft PR or talking about samosas at airport canteens when bigger issues are at stake," Bharadwaj said in a video posted on X. "Whenever the Opposition staged a walkout in Parliament, you (Chadha) did not participate. You did not raise issues concerning Punjab, from where you are elected, and you hid in a foreign country when former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal was arrested," he added. AAP national media in-charge Anurag Dhanda also criticised Chadha, questioning whether someone who "fears" Prime Minister Narendra Modi can fight for the country. "In West Bengal
AAP MP Raghav Chadha on Friday said he has been "silenced, not defeated", a day after being removed as the party's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha. He also alleged that his own party had sought to prevent him from speaking in Parliament. In a video posted on X, Chadha said, "Whenever I get a chance, I raise issues concerning the people in Parliament, including topics that are often overlooked. But is it an offence to talk about people's problems? Did I commit any crime?" Chadha also hit out at his party, alleging that it had informed the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to stop him from speaking in Parliament. "The AAP has informed Parliament that I should not be given a chance to speak. I would like to tell them -- do not take my silence for defeat," Chadha said. "I raised several issues that benefited aam aadmi (common man). What harm did that cause the Aam Aadmi Party? Why does anyone want to stop me from speaking?" he added. The AAP on Thursday wrote to the Rajya Sabha secretariat se