When the Aam Aadmi Party government was formed in Punjab in 2022, Raghav Chadha was called the de-facto CM. It was also said about Raghav Chadha that he is in direct contact with Arvind Kejriwal and is running the Punjab government through the back door. During this time, news of conflict between Bhagwant Mann and Raghav Chadha also came to light. On many occasions, Raghav was also accused of running the Punjab government parallel to Bhagwant Mann, holding meetings of officials and taking decisions. Although Raghav Chadha or Bhagwant Mann never openly showed any displeasure regarding this issue, but this conflict continued internally.
According to party sources, Bhagwant Mann expressed his displeasure to Arvind Kejriwal several times, but Raghav continued to be Kejriwal's favourite. His conflict with Kejriwal and the party high command started when the senior leaders of Aam Aadmi Party and especially during the arrest of Kejriwal, Bhagwant Mann along with his cabinet ministers and MLAs reached Delhi to stage a protest but Raghav Chadha stayed away from these protest programs.
At that time the party expected him to stand more strongly for the party. On this occasion, Bhagwant Mann continued to participate in protests to show his loyalty to the party. After Arvind Kejriwal came out of jail, Raghav Chadha was completely kept away from Punjab for this reason. But Raghav gradually started distancing himself from the central leadership of the party.
Raghav Chadha stayed away from issues on which the party had, on several occasions, decided to stand with other opposition parties. Instead of the issues that the party asked him to raise in the Rajya Sabha, Raghav Chadha raised other issues. For this reason, his distance from the party high command and especially Arvind Kejriwal kept increasing.
Raghav was raising issues like middle class, tax, gig workers in Parliament. Regarding this, Aam Aadmi Party felt that Raghav Chadha was moving away from the party line and was trying to project the image of a different independence leader, after which Raghav was removed from the post of Deputy Leader of AAP in Rajya Sabha. Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann also expressed his anger regarding Raghav Chadha and even said that Raghav is compromised.
