BJP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha has claimed a political vendetta following the release of his name as “permanently shifted” on the draft electoral rolls in Punjab.
The development has triggered a fresh political fight between Chadha and his former party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Chadha, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab as an AAP candidate in 2022 and subsequently joined BJP in April 2026, said his voter identification was registered in Mohali.
He questioned how his name could be classified as “shifted” in the draft electoral roll as he remains a Rajya Sabha member from Punjab.
The entry is in the ASDD list, which contains voters who are absent, shifted, deceased or duplicate. The Punjab draft electoral roll was published on August 13 as part of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Around 20.66 lakh names were removed from the state’s draft rolls.
Chadha, speaking out on this development, accused the AAP-led Punjab government of using electoral revision to attack political opponents. The issue was not just an administrative or clerical error, he said, but political retaliation as he left AAP.
Chadha also referred to the Election Commission’s SIR guidelines regarding public representatives.
He claimed that the applicable provisions required the names of certain public representatives flagged in electoral databases to be included in the draft rolls so that supporting documents could be collected during the claims and objections period.
“Since I left the corrupt Aam Aadmi Party, its leadership has been burning with anger,” Chadha said, citing the voter-roll issue to support his decision to leave AAP and join the BJP.
AAP, however, has denied the allegations. The party and Punjab government officials have maintained that the Special Intensive Revision is carried out by the Election Commission and that the state government has no role in deciding which individual names are included or removed from the electoral rolls.
AAP has also questioned Chadha’s voter-registration status and claimed he’s trying to shift his voter registration to Delhi.
Chadha has denied that claim and maintained that his voter ID remains registered in Mohali.
Importantly, the current list is only a draft. Chadha has said that he is using the remedies available under the SIR guidelines during the claims and objections process. The final electoral roll is expected to be published in October.
The controversy still remains unresolved, and Chadha claims political targeting while AAP insists that the state government had no involvement in the deletion.
The outcome will be determined by both the electoral roll correction and the Election Commission’s decision on the objection.
