Raghav Chadha appointed chair of Rajya Sabha Committee on Petitions
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New Delhi: Raghav Chadha, Rajya Sabha Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, has been appointed Chairman of the Upper House’s Committee on Petitions as part of a reconstitution exercise carried out by Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan, an official said on Sunday.
The Committee was reconstituted on May 20.
An official notification stated, “Raghav Chadha has been appointed Chairman of the committee.”
Other members of the panel include Jebi Mather Hisham, Harsh Mahajan, Gulam Ali, Mayankkumar Nayak, Masthan Rao Yadav Beedha, Subhasish Khuntia, Rwngwra Narzary, Sandosh Kumar P. and Shambhu Sharan Patel.
The appointment comes shortly after Chadha’s reported switch to the Bharatiya Janata Party from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) along with six other Rajya Sabha MPs.
In April, seven Rajya Sabha MPs—Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Vikram Sahney, Swati Maliwal and Rajinder Gupta—defected from AAP to BJP, reducing AAP’s strength in the Upper House from 10 to three.
Soon after the switch, Chadha met President Droupadi Murmu over allegations of misuse of state resources by the AAP-led government in Punjab.
He alleged that the Punjab government engaged in “political vendetta” by using police and administrative machinery to target MPs who left AAP to join BJP.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann strongly criticised the defecting MPs, saying those justifying defections were undermining the people’s mandate and appeared ready to change their political allegiance.
He also said that those who disrespected the mandate of the people deserved no mercy and referred to them as “traitors of Punjab and Punjabis.”
With IANS inputs
