Raghav Chadha, AAP spar over his name being marked ‘shifted’ in Punjab draft rolls

Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Thursday (September 3, 2026) attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) authorities in Punjab for allegedly marking his identify as “shifted” within the draft electoral record revealed as a part of the Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) course of.

Hitting again, AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that Mr. Chadha may lose his Rajya Sabha seat as a result of his “vote received deleted in SIR”.

Mr. Chadha, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2022 on an AAP nomination, crossed over to the BJP in April.

“The AAP authorities in Punjab has now taken its politics of revenge to the Draft Electoral Rolls. I’m a sitting Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab, with my voter ID registered in Mohali, Punjab. But my identify has been categorised as “shifted” within the draft electoral rolls,” Mr. Chadha stated in a publish on X on Thursday.

He added that “fortunately,” this was the draft Electoral Rolls, not the Ultimate Electoral Rolls. “I’m already within the technique of availing the treatments offered below SIR pointers. This doesn’t seem to be a mere clerical mistake. This can be a clear case of political vendetta,” he stated.

Chadha making an attempt to get registered via ‘backdated course of’: AAP

The AAP stated in a press release that the SIR is carried out by the Election Fee, not the State authorities, so the Punjab authorities had no function in deciding whose identify is included or deleted from the electoral roll.

“It’s a matter of public file that Raghav Chadha has been residing in Delhi and never in Punjab. If he now not resides in Punjab, sustaining or shifting his voter registration was his personal duty,” the assertion stated.

The AAP alleged that it has obtained info from Election Fee sources that Mr. Chadha was making an attempt to get his voter registration made in Rajinder Nagar, Delhi, via a backdated course of.

“If any such backdated or illegal train has taken place, it have to be investigated and the whole fact introduced earlier than the general public. If the BJP or anybody else has facilitated any such backdated entry, we’ll pursue the matter to its logical conclusion and expose the reality,” the assertion stated.

What the rule says

Beneath Election Fee guidelines, an individual can register to vote from a selected sales space if is an strange resident there. Which means that he has been residing there for a interval of not lower than six months.

Within the detailed pointers issued by the Election Fee of India for the Particular Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a selected provision — cited as Paragraph 4(d) — requires that names of “sure classes of individuals”, in the event that they had been already flagged/recognized within the electoral database, have to be robotically carried into the Draft Electoral Roll, relatively than being dropped for need of a contemporary enumeration type. This successfully creates a “protected record” so their case is dealt with via the Claims & Objections window relatively than outright omission.

These are members of the judiciary (judges), public representatives (generally understood to incorporate sitting MPs and MLAs), holders of declared workplaces, personalities from the fields of Arts, Tradition, Journalism, Sports activities, Public providers (and comparable classes.

The availability doesn’t exempt these people from verification altogether — it ensures their names are included within the draft roll (relatively than deleted for non-submission) in order that the required supporting paperwork can nonetheless be collected throughout the Claims and Objections interval.

Nevertheless, regardless of this, until now many well-known folks, together with ex-defence top-ranking defence personnel, have discovered their names lacking from draft rolls.