Silenced, not defeated: Raghav Chadha slams AAP

A day after he was removed as deputy leader of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Rajya Sabha, Raghav Chadha issued a video statement saying he could be silenced but not defeated.

The video was closely followed by statements from AAP leaders -- from Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to Saurabh Bhardwaj, who accused Chadha of practising a politics of fear and not questioning the ruling BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key issues, including the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.

Chadha earlier today asked why AAP wanted to silence him and if it was a sin to raise people's issues such as expensive food at airports, problems of riders of Zomato or food adulteration.

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"What harm have these issues brought to AAP? asked Chadha, saying his silence shouldn't be seen as a defeat. "I am that river which turns into flood when the time comes," he said.

Bhardwaj countered Chadha, saying parties had limited time in Parliament where burning issues of the day were more important than raising issues of "samosas".

"Your soft issues do not bother the BJP. The ruling party has been supporting you on social media since yesterday," Bhardwaj, AAP's Delhi incharge, said a day after AAP wrote to the Rajya Sabha secretariat to replace Chadha with Ashok Mittal as deputy leader in the Upper House and not allot him time from the party quota to speak.

AAP leaders said Chadha defied party's whip by not signing the motion against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on the SIR issue and not walking out with the Opposition on the issue of uniform solidarity. "This is a routine disciplinary issue which all parties resort to," AAP said, recalling how Chadha never supported party leaders, including AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal who was arrested in the Delhi excise scam as sitting CM.

"When Arvind Kejriwal and other top leaders of AAP were discharged in the excise scam, Chadha said nothing," party leaders said as both sides sparred on the intent behind the removal of the MP from a key Rajya Sabha post.

Bhardwaj said Chadha used Parliament for soft PR and had been resorting to soft issues in the Rajya Sabha. The AAP leaders accused Chadha of practising a politics of fear which was not sustainable. They added that Chadha never even raised any issue of Punjab which he represented in the Rajya Sabha.