Mohali/Chandigarh: Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Thursday accused the Punjab government of engaging in a “politics of revenge” after his name was shown as “shifted” in the draft electoral roll published during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) for Punjab, reported the original outlet.
What happened
The draft electoral roll for the SIR, published on 13 August 2026, included an entry for Chadha that classified him as “permanently shifted”. Chadha’s registered voter address is in Mohali, Punjab. He said the classification removed his name from the draft roll as a Punjab elector, a move he criticised as politically motivated following his departure from the Aam Aadmi Party in April 2026 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party along with six other Rajya Sabha MPs, according to the report.
Chadha’s response and legal remedy
Posting on the X platform, Chadha questioned the officials responsible for marking and verifying the change and asked who processed the alteration. He highlighted provisions in the Election Commission of India’s SIR guidelines that, he said, require public representatives already flagged in the electoral database to be included in the draft electoral roll. He also acknowledged that the roll is still a draft and said he would pursue the remedies available under the SIR process to rectify the record, the report added.
“The AAP government in Punjab has now taken its politics of revenge to the Draft Electoral Rolls,” Chadha wrote on X, as reported.
What the SIR process means
The Special Intensive Revision is a time-bound exercise conducted by election authorities to update the electoral rolls. A draft publication allows affected electors to object or apply for corrections before the final roll is published. Chadha told the platform he intends to use those processes; the report did not detail any formal petition filed by him at the time of reporting.
- Registered address: Mohali, Punjab (Chadha)
- Draft roll published: 13 August 2026
- Classification on roll: “Permanently shifted”
- Political context: Chadha left AAP for the BJP in April 2026 with six Rajya Sabha colleagues
Responses and gaps in public record
The report did not quote any immediate response from the Punjab government or the Aam Aadmi Party regarding the classification. It also did not cite any statement from the state’s Chief Electoral Officer or the Election Commission of India explaining how the particular entry was processed. Those omissions leave open questions about administrative responsibility and whether the marking arose from a clerical update, a data-merge issue, or an authorised transfer of address.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Elector | Raghav Chadha |
| Registered location | Mohali, Punjab |
| Draft roll status | Marked as “permanently shifted” |
| Draft published | 13 August 2026 |
| Political context | Chadha left AAP and joined BJP in April 2026 with six other RS MPs |
Broader implications
Electoral-roll accuracy is central to the integrity of voter lists and to the ability of electors, including public representatives, to exercise voting rights. If a sitting MP is excluded from a state draft roll, it raises administrative and political issues: the former around the auditability of roll revisions and the latter around perceptions of partisan use of electoral machinery. Chadha’s allegation frames the incident as punitive; without independent confirmation from electoral authorities or the Punjab government the cause remains undetermined, the report noted.
The SIR process includes mechanisms for objections and corrections that can restore or clarify an elector’s status before the final roll is published. Chadha indicated he would use those remedies. The report did not indicate whether any corrective action had been initiated by election officials at the time of publication.
Further clarification from the Punjab election office, the Election Commission of India, or a response from the Aam Aadmi Party would be necessary to establish whether the marking was an administrative error, a data-handling anomaly, or an action taken on authorised grounds. The original reporting remains the primary source for these facts.
