CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Thursday said that the removal of AAP leader Raghav Chadha as the party’s Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha indicates that he has been sidelined within the party. “It is now clear that Raghav Chadha is separate from the Aam Aadmi Party. People realised this long ago, when he went to London while Kejriwal was arrested. Public perception now is that Chadha will leave or be removed from the party and join elsewhere,” Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said. Ashok Kumar Mittal replaced AAP MP Raghav Chadha as the Deputy Leader of the party in the House. AAP MP Sanjay Singh, reacting on party’s decision, said, “We have informed the Rajya Sabha Secretariat about the decision of the party.”Ashok Kumar Mittal is a Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab, elected in April 2022. Since then, he has served on several parliamentary committees, including the Committee on Defence and the Committee on Finance. In February 2026, he was also inducted into the India–USA Parliamentary Friendship Group.He was part of an all-party delegation led by DMK MP Kanimozhi that visited Russia, Latvia, Slovenia, Greece and Spain following last year’s Pahalgam terror attack.Raghav Chadha has also been a Rajya Sabha MP since April 2022 and has made headlines on multiple occasions for raising public issues in Parliament. Last month, Raghav Chadha raised concerns over the practice of “sarpanch pati” or “panchayat pati,” where women elected to reserved Panchayat seats often serve as figureheads while real power is exercised by their male relatives. He urged the government to ensure that women representatives in local bodies can exercise genuine authority as intended under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment.He had also raised the issue of menstrual hygiene in Parliament, describing it as a matter of health, education and equality that affects over 35 crore women and girls in India. Chadha said that if a girl misses school due to the lack of sanitary pads, water or privacy, it is not a personal issue but a collective failure, adding that society has turned a biological fact into a social taboo.Amid the gig workers’ agitation earlier this year, he also spent a day working as a delivery partner to gain firsthand insight into the pressures and challenges of the job.(With agency inputs)
