A day after joining the BJP, Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha offered what he called an explanation for the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) crushing defeat in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections: the ‘sheesh mahal’ row.
Chadha, who joined the ruling BJP in Delhi and the Center on Friday along with six other AAP Rajya Sabha MPs, said the controversy surrounding Arvind Kejriwal’s official residence as Prime Minister was not just a political embarrassment. He said this eroded the moral credibility that the AAP had spent more than a decade building.
“If there is one major reason for the Aam Aadmi Party’s loss in the Delhi elections, Sheesh Mahal was one of the major reasons,” Chadha said, adding that the row “has severely damaged the image of the AAP.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party, to which the Chadha Party now belongs, has already started making allegations about ‘Sheesh Mahal 2’ as well. And he was speaking in that light as well. He had earlier said that he left the AAP and was mostly inactive for the past few years because “I didn’t want to be part of their sins”.
What is the Shish Mahal controversy?
The term “Sheesh Mahal” (literally, Hindustani for “glass palace”) was used by the BJP to mock the large-scale renovation of Kejriwal’s official residence No. 6 Flagstaff Road in Civil Lines, and has become one of the strongest symbols of the BJP’s campaign ahead of the 2025 Delhi elections.
Chadha was mostly absent from the AAP campaign at the time, and has made occasional appearances since 2023, particularly after Kejriwal and others were accused of corruption in Delhi’s excise policy (liquor sales) and were arrested – a case in which they have all since been released by a lower court.
The BJP at the time claimed that taxpayers’ money running into crores was spent on interiors, Italian marble and luxury fittings at the residence of Kejriwal, a man who has built his political identity on austerity and anti-corruption.
The AAP dismissed the allegations as motivated propaganda of the BJP and accused the party of misrepresenting the construction costs.
Kejriwal vacated the bungalow after resigning from the post of chief minister in September 2024, following his release from Tihar Jail in the corruption case. However, by then, the novel had taken hold.
Delhi voters delivered a decisive ruling in February 2025, handing the BJP a landslide victory and reducing the RJD to a fraction of its previous strength in the Assembly. Kejriwal himself lost from the New Delhi constituency.
Since his resignation as chief minister, Kejriwal had been residing in a bungalow meant for AAP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal until this week, before shifting to another house given to him by the government as party chief on the court’s directions. Mittal also switched to the BJP on the same day Kejriwal vacated his house.
“Shish Mahal 2”
Now, Chadha says history is indeed repeating itself. Referring to the fresh allegations made by Delhi Minister Parvesh Verma, Chadha claimed that the ‘Sheesh Mahal Part II’ has appeared in a newly allotted bungalow in Lodhi Estate, where Kejriwal now resides.
“It’s not even a year since the Delhi elections ended, and the second part has come from Sheesh Mahal. I wonder how the few good workers remaining in AAP will answer people on the streets when they are asked about this,” Chadha said.
The photos posted by Verma allegedly showed lavish construction and renovation work at the property, but AAP claimed these were fake or just random downloads from the internet.
Senior AAP leader Atishi, who served as chief minister briefly after Kejriwal resigned ahead of the 2025 elections, challenged the BJP to open the homes of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the lieutenant governor to public scrutiny along with Kejriwal’s, and “let the voters decide”.
Chadha’s remarks come amid the most serious regulatory crisis in the AAP’s 13-year history. The simultaneous defection of seven Rajya Sabha MPs – who represent two-thirds of the party’s upper house strength – means they will not lose their seats as per the law.
