New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party has canceled Raghav Chadha was appointed Deputy Leader of the Rajya Sabha and Ashok Mittal was nominated in his place. The party sent a letter to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat on Thursday informing it of the decision. By evening, the RS website reflected the change.Both Chadha and Mittal are from Punjab; AAP has 10 members in the Rajya Sabha, including former MP Swati Maliwal. The party’s sudden decision to remove Chadha gave rise to the perception of growing differences between him and the party’s top leadership. Arvind Kejriwal.

Chadha, once a trusted aide of Kejriwal, has been seen on the margins for some time now. In recent times, despite being the national spokesperson of the party, his absence from the party supremo’s programs and his silence on various issues raised by seniors in the party also heated up the rumor mill.

Chadha’s silence after Kejriwal’s arrest was the first sign of a rift

The first sign that all was not well between the party leadership and Chadha came when then Delhi CM Kejriwal was arrested in March 2024 in an excise policy case, and the RS MP – seen as a close confidant of Kejriwal – was absent. Although the party tried to calm the speculations by citing that Chadha was abroad due to medical reasons, his prolonged absence and silence did not go down well with the AAP supremo.More recently, Chadha, who is otherwise a vocal MP in Parliament on issues related to public welfare, did not make any statement after Kejriwal and former Delhi deputy CM Manish Sisodia were acquitted by a Delhi court in a liquor case last month. After this, he was not even present in Kejriwal’s press conference and Jantar Mantar rally.Later in the day, Chadha shared a cryptic post on He added an evil eye emoji to the post.