Raghav Chadha to Bhagwant Mann: Leaders Trade Personal Attacks Over Marriages

AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj attacked Raghav Chadha over his defection to BJP, claiming his marriage to Parineeti Chopra was possible only because the party gave him a Rajya Sabha seat. Congress’s Randhawa then dragged Bhagwant Mann’s second marriage into the row.

North Desk Correspondent

Chandigarh, April 28

Raghav Chadha to Bhagwant Mann, it’s their marriages now that have come discussion in politics. The fallout from Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha’s defection from Aam Aadmi Party (whose leader Bhagwant Mann is Chief Minister of Punjab) to the BJP has taken an unexpected turn — away from ideology and party loyalty, and into the most personal territory possible: marriage.

First it was senior AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj saying that Raghav Chadha’s marriage happened because the party made him an MP, and then it was a Punjab Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa joining in saying: If Bhagwant Mann was not the CM, he would not have been able to get married for the second time…”

On Monday, senior AAP leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, responding to Raghav Chadha’s departure, went well beyond accusing him of betrayal. He posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Agar aaj aapki shaadi ho payi hai, toh woh isliye kyunki party ne aapko Rajya Sabha ke andar member banaya. Varna koi aapko poochhta bhi nahin.” (If your marriage happened today, it is because the party made you a Rajya Sabha member. Otherwise, no one would have bothered with you.)

The comment came within hours of Raghav Chadha issuing a video message listing his reasons for moving over to the BJP. AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj also posted a video in which he rebutted his former colleague’s claims. He said: “Response to Raghav’s Video. Raghav Chadha says his changing party is like someone switching a job from one company to another. Though it’s not the same but even when people switch jobs, they don’t hatch conspiracy against their parent company. For more than a year, Raghav conspired with BJP’s Central Govt to create a neutral image of a young politician who raises middle class issues…”

The remark was pointed. Chadha, 37, married Bollywood actor Parineeti Chopra in September 2023 in an elaborate ceremony in Udaipur attended by Arvind Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann, and other AAP leaders. The wedding was widely seen at the time as a social and political high point for the young leader. Monday’s statement recast it as a transaction.

Bharadwaj went further, accusing Chadha of working with the BJP for over a year before his formal defection. “For more than a year, Raghav conspired with the BJP’s central government to build an image as a young leader championing middle-class issues,” he alleged, adding that issues Chadha raised — airport vendors, mobile recharge pricing, food delivery platforms — were fed to him by the central government to build a “neutral” public profile.

Then Congress Walked Into the Room

It moved from Raghav Chadha to Bhagwant Mann’s marriage. If Bharadwaj’s remarks were sharp, what followed from the Congress camp was something else entirely.

Punjab Congress leader and former minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, ostensibly responding to Bharadwaj’s remarks, said: “Bhagwant Mann bhi isliye shaadi kar sake kyunki woh CM bane…He (Raghav Chadha) is young. He would have eventually gotten married, maybe with someone else and not with his current wife…”

The implication was that Mann, too, had benefited from political power in his personal life — a reference to the Punjab Chief Minister’s second marriage, to Dr Gurpreet Kaur in 2022.

Mann, who is in his 50s, had separated from his first wife in 2015 before marrying again after becoming Chief Minister. His remarriage was widely accepted at the time and attracted no political controversy. Randhawa’s invocation of it now — intended, apparently, as a parallel to deflect from Bharadwaj’s attack on Chadha — instead dragged the sitting Chief Minister’s personal life into a row he had nothing to do with.

It was a striking own goal: a Congress leader insulting the AAP CM while trying to defend the party’s position on an AAP deserter.

What the Remarks Reveal

The ugliness of Monday’s exchanges tells you more about the state of Punjab politics than about either Raghav Chadha or Bhagwant Mann.

First, that AAP’s internal fury at Chadha is genuine and deep. Bharadwaj’s remarks were not a calculated political statement — they were the kind of thing you say when you feel genuinely betrayed. The marriage line, in particular, is the sort of jab that comes from personal bitterness, not party strategy.

Second, that the Congress in Punjab still has no clear lane. Randhawa’s statement served no obvious purpose — it did not embarrass AAP, did not help Raghav Chadha, and managed to make a sitting CM’s personal life fair game. It is the kind of intervention that reflects a party still searching for an attack line rather than one with a coherent opposition strategy.

Third, that Parineeti Chopra and Dr Gurpreet Kaur — both private individuals in this context — are being made collateral in a fight entirely of the political class’s making. Neither woman had any role in these events. That their marriages are now being weaponised as data points in a political argument is a reminder of how casually Punjab politicians treat personal lives as ammunition.

The Chadha Defection

Raghav Chadha formally joined the BJP on April 24, 2026, along with six other AAP Rajya Sabha MPs. His departure came weeks after AAP abruptly removed him as deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha on April 2, replacing him with Punjab MP Ashok Kumar Mittal. Chadha had released a video accusing AAP of being run by “a handful of corrupt people.” AAP countered that he had been conspiring with the BJP for over a year.