New Delhi: Leaders quitting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have not done so out of fear but due to a growing sense of ” disappointment, disengagement and disgust” with the organisation, Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha said Saturday, a day after he joined the BJP along with six other party MPs.
Referring to the ‘Sheesh Mahal’ row regarding Kejriwal’s official residence when he was Delhi’s chief minister, Chadha claimed it was one of the main reasons for AAP’s defeat in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections.
He said that every true patriot who had nurtured the AAP with their blood and sweat with great hope has either already left the party or is in the process of leaving it.
Chadha claimed every honest and hardworking person now feels that there is “no space left to work in AAP” and that the party is moving on a wrong path with which no one wants to remain associated.
“Because of this, leaders have been leaving the party one after another,” Chadha told PTI Videos.
AAP has accused the BJP of engineering the split and using fear of central agencies to poach its leaders. Calling the seven MPs “gaddar” (traitors), the ruling party in Punjab said it will seek their disqualification from the Upper House.
However, Chadha said the MPs are leaving the AAP together because they believe it has gone into “corrupt and compromised hands”.
He said those in AAP claiming that leaders left out of fear were wrong, adding that they did not leave due to any fear but because they felt disappointed, disengaged and disgusted with the party.
Chadha alleged that “Sheesh Mahal Part Two” has now come up in Delhi, and some pictures of it have surfaced, referring to an earlier press conference where Delhi cabinet minister Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma alleged that money was being squandered on a newly allotted bungalow in Lodhi Estate to AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal.
Chadha said that when the first “Sheesh Mahal” was built, it had badly damaged the image of AAP. “It was one of the main reasons behind the party’s defeat in the Delhi Assembly elections,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, AAP leader Atishi claimed the photographs released by Verma were fake.
In a post on X in Hindi, the former Delhi chief minister said, “All the pictures released by Parvesh Verma are fake. They are not pictures of Kejriwal ji’s house.”
“To find out whose house is luxurious, (chief minister) Rekha Gupta ji and lieutenant governor sahib should open their own houses, and Kejriwal ji will open his house. The public will decide for itself,” she added.
Chadha said not even a year had passed since the Delhi elections ended, and “Sheesh Mahal Part Two has already emerged”, describing it as a lavish construction.
He said AAP should introspect on these issues and wondered how the remaining party workers would answer people on the streets when questioned about the “Sheesh Mahal”.
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