New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) Raghav Chadha, Rajya Sabha Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, was appointed the new Chairman of the Committee on Petitions of the Upper House, as part of the exercise to reconstitute the panel by Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan, an official said on Sunday.

The Committee was reconstituted on May 20.

Other members of the Committee include Jebi Mather Hisham, Harsh Mahajan, Gulam Ali, Mayankkumar Nayak, Masthan Rao Yadav Beedha, Subhasish Khuntia, Rwngwra Narzary, Sandosh Kumar P. and Shambhu Sharan Patel.

An official notification said, “Raghav Chadha has been appointed Chairman of the committee.”

The key responsibility for Chadha comes close to his recent switch to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) along with six other MPs in the Upper House.

In April, seven Rajya Sabha MPs — Raghav Chadha, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh, Vikram Sahney, Swati Maliwal and Rajinder Gupta — defected from the AAP to the BJP, dealing a major blow to the AAP as its strength in the Upper House plunged from 10 to just three.

Soon after, Chadha met President Droupadi Murmu regarding the alleged misuse of state resources by the AAP-led government in Punjab.

Chadha claimed that the Punjab government indulged in “political vendetta” by allegedly utilising police and administrative resources to target MPs who recently left AAP to join the BJP.

Earlier, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had hit out at Chadha and other MPs joining the BJP.

Chief Minister Mann said, “Those who are terming this defection as the order of the day or a tradition are justifying a grave disregard for the people’s verdict. This is unacceptable, and those speaking in such a manner appear to be preparing to shift their allegiance.”

These MPs who have disrespected the mandate of the people deserve no mercy as they are the traitors of Punjab and Punjabis, he added.

–IANS

rch/khz