Chadha will now be the de facto CM: BJP

Chandigarh, July 12, 2022: The Bharatiya Janata Party today criticized the Aam Aadmi Party government’s decision to appoint Raghav Chadha as the Chairman of an Advisory Committee to the government. The party demanded immediate withdrawal of the decision saying it will not be tolerated by the people of Punjab as it amounted to surrendering the authority to Delhi bosses.

In a statement issued here yesterday, the BJP state general secretary Dr Subhash Sharma said, his party had been saying from day one that Bhagwant Mann was just a puppet in the hands of Arvind Kejriwal. “Earlier Chadha used to operate through backdoors, now he will dictate his authority openly”, he remarked, adding, this is the first step towards making Chadha as the full-fledged CM of Punjab.

The BJP leader took a dig at the government for claiming that it will not be giving any perks to Chadha, saying this was done only to escape the provisions of the law on office of profit since Chadha is a Rajya Sabha MP and not to save Punjab’s money. Otherwise, he added, the government would have given him perks also.

Sharma said, the AAP’s decision to appoint an advisory committee with Chadha as Chairman was similar to one made by the UPA government when it constituted an advisory committee with Ms Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson while Dr Manmohan Singh was made a rubber stamp Prime Minister.

The Punjab BJP general secretary made it categorically clear that Punjab cannot be ruled from Delhi and people of Punjab did not vote for Chadha as the Chief Minister, which is the ultimate aim of the AAP. “Sooner you withdraw this decision, the better it will be”, he told the AAP leadership.