Raghav Chadha resigns as AAP MLA ahead of Rajya Sabha inning

The 33-year-old is set to be elected to the Upper House of Parliament from Punjab along with four other AAP nominees after the party came to power in the state this month

NEW DELHI: Raghav Chadha, the Rajendra Nagar MLA from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who has been nominated for Rajya Sabha, on Thursday resigned as a member of the Delhi Assembly. The 33-year-old is all set to be elected to the Upper House of Parliament from Punjab along with four other people nominated by AAP after it came to power in the state with a thumping margin.

Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha. (ANI Photo)

The resignation means that bypolls to the Rajendra Nagar assembly constituency should be conducted within the next six months. It will be the first byelection since the 2020 Delhi assembly polls in which AAP won 62 out of the 70 total seats.

In a brief speech in assembly earlier today, Chadha thanked the people of Rajendra Nagar for electing him as an MLA in 2020, and also AAP national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for giving him the opportunity.

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri congratulated Chadha for the Rajya Sabha nomination.

Chadha, a key member of the party and House committees, is one of AAP’s public faces. He will be the youngest member in the Rajya Sabha, a fitting reward for spearheading the party’s election campaigns in Delhi and Punjab. He also served as the vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board during his stint as an MLA.

Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Lovely Professional University founder Ashok Mittal, IIT Delhi faculty member Sandeep Pathak and industrialist Sanjeev Arora are the other AAP nominees to the Upper House from Punjab. The Rajya Sabha elections will be held on March 31.

The term of five Rajya Sabha members from Punjab — Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (Shiromani Akali Dal), Partap Singh Bajwa (Congress), Shwait Malik (Bharatiya Janata Party ), Naresh Gujral (SAD) and Shamsher Singh Dullo (Congress) — will end on April 9.

The Rajendra Nagar constituency is largely urban and has been represented by AAP since 2015. It comprises Rajinder Nagar (old) and Rajinder Nagar (new), Naraina, Inderpuri, New Patel Nagar and Todapur and some parts of Karol Bagh.

It has a diverse population, including clusters of slum dwellers who reside in Gas Godam Jhuggi, Rajiv Gandhi Camp, Indira Camp and other places. The constituency also has resettlement colonies that house a large number of the lower middle class population. Some villages in the constituency, such as Dashgara, comprise a mixed population of Yadavs and Jatts, while Naraina is dominated by Rajputs.

Between 1993 and 2008, the seat was represented by the BJP, while the Congress won the seat in 2008, only to be won back by the BJP in 2013. However, in the 2020 assembly election, Chadha bagged 59,135 votes (57% vote share) against BJP candidate RP Singh’s 39,077 votes (37.7% vote share). Congress candidate Rocky Tuseed got only 3,941 votes (3.8% vote share).