The Ideas Page: Nari shakti and the art of image management 9 SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 2026 JOURNALISM of COURAGE AHMEDABAD, LATE CITY, 20 PAGES ₹6.00 l www.indianexpress.com DA I LY F R O M : A H M E DA B A D , C H A N D I GA R H , D E L H I , J A I P U R , KO L K ATA , L U C K N O W , M U M B A I , N AG P U R , PAT N A , P U N E , VA D O DA R A WELCOMED BY NABIN INTO BjP FOLD; SHOCK WAVES IN PUNjAB WHERE POLLS ARE DUE EARLY NEXT YEAR In major setback to AAP, seven of its 10 Rajya Sabha MPs cross over to BJP Chadha’s removal,Mittal onEDradar: AAPpointsto earlysigns AAP calls it ‘betrayal’, accuses BJP of another ‘Operation Lotus’ jatin Anand & Liz Mathew New Delhi, April 24 IN A huge setback to the AAP, seven of its 10 Rajya Sabha members, constituting twothirds of the party strength in the Upper House, crossed over to the BJP Friday, creating ripples in political circles, especially in Punjab where AAP’s rule will be tested in Assembly elections early next year. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, AAP MP Raghav Chadha, removed as the party deputy leader in Rajya Sabha three weeks ago, said he, along with six party members of the House, had “merged with the BJP”. The AAP had 10 MPs in Rajya Sabha — 7 from Punjab, 3 from Delhi. Flanked by MPs Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak, Chadha announced their exit from the AAP along with Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjeet Singh Sahney, Swati Maliwal and Harbhajan Singh. “They have already signed, and this morning we submitted all the required documentation, including signed letters and other formal paperwork, to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha,” he said. Following the press conference, Chadha and his colleagues headed to the BJP headquarters where they were »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 INsIDE PAgE 16 ExPLAINEd: wILL thEy bE dISqUALIfIEd? business as Usual By EP UNNY jatin Anand & Deeptiman Tiwary Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal with BJP president Nitin Nabin and party leaders Anil Baluni (extreme left), Tarun Chugh and Arun Singh (extreme right) at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, Friday. PTI The AAP which I nurtured with my blood and sweat... has strayed from its principles, values and core morals.” Game of dirty politics... to stall the good work of the Bhagwant Mann government (in Punjab) has begun on a large scale.” RAGHAV CHADHA, AHEAD OF JOINING BJP SANjAY SINGH, AAP RAJYA SABHA MP AAPinParliament RAjYA SABHA: 10 From Punjab: l Ashok Kumar Mittal l Harbhajan Singh l Raghav Chadha l Rajinder Gupta l Sandeep Kumar Pathak l Sant Balbir Singh l Vikramjit Singh Sahney From Delhi: l Narain Dass Gupta l Sanjay Singh l Swati Maliwal LOK SABHA: 3 l Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer l Malvinder Singh Kang l Raj Kumar Chabbewal. All from Punjab Faultlines surface in AAP Punjab unit, raise fears of wider churn Kanchan Vasdev Chandigarh, April 24 THEDEFECTIONofsevenAam AadmiParty(AAP)RajyaSabha MPs is not merely a setback in Delhi, but could have an effect inPunjab,wheretheparty’sgovernment faces Assembly elections in less than a year. What has the AAP leadership concerned is the deep organisational roles that Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak hadinPunjabandtheinfluence they wielded all these years right from the selection of candidates ahead of the 2022 polls. Nearly 50% of AAP MLAs owe their candidature to either of the two. In other words, the split in the party’s ranks in Rajya Sabha also brings to the fore long-standing tensions TRACK THIS AND MORE ON www.INDIANExPREss.cOM within the state unit. This would test AAP’s ability to retain cohesion in a unit that expanded rapidly and is controlledbythecentral leadership. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann slammed the rebel MPs as “gaddaar (traitors) of Punjab”, and said they left the party to “save their own skin”. Just E. »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Trump sends Witkoff, 27 years after police shot Kushner to Pak for talks dead gangster, nephew with Araghchi today kills ‘informant’, arrested Manish Kumar Pathak Mumbai, April 24 USPRESIDENTDonaldTrump issendinghisenvoysSteveWitkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan,theWhiteHousesaidFriday, just hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi headed to the South Asian nation where officials have been trying to get the US and Iran to convene for a second roundofceasefirenegotiations. The trip comes as much of the world is on edge over a war that has snarled crucial energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz, clouded the global economicpictureandleftthousands dead across the Middle East. WHEN MUMBAI gangster Sadiq Kalia was shot dead in a police encounter at Dadar in 1999, his nephew, Sadiq Javar, was barely two years old. And yet, 27 years later, according to Mumbai Police, Javar allegedly went looking for the man he blamed for it — an “informant” whose tip-off had allegedly led to Kalia’s killing by a team led by “encounter specialist” Daya Nayak. On the evening of April 20, the alleged informant Iqbal Ibrahim Seliya, 78, was alone at hishomeinNagpadawhentwo men walked in and attacked him with a chopper. They struck him more than 20 times Islamabad, April 24 lKALVAKUNTLA KAVITHA, daughter of former Telangana CM KCR, is set to officially launch her own political party. 65 on Bengal poll duty among SIR exclusions, SC says approach tribunals New Delhi, April 24 Munir Ahmed, jon Gambrell & jamey Keaten Happening today Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigns in Dum Dum, North 24 Parganas district; (right) West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in Howrah district, ahead of the second phase of the polls. PTI Security restrictions in Islamabad Friday ahead of the US-Iran peace talks. REUTERS White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News Channel that the two will have talks with Araghchi on Saturday. “We’re hopeful that it will be a productive conversation and hopefully move the ball »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 and left only after making sure hewasdead.WhenSeliya’swife and son returned home, police said, they found him lying in a pool of blood. Four days later, on Friday, theMumbaiCrimeBranchsaid it had tracked down and arrested the alleged killers, Javar and an associate Naushad Mithani (22), in Nagpur. According to police, Javar’s uncle Sadiq Kalia grew up in Kalachowki under difficult circumstances, selling shoes on the footpath to get by in the 1990s. When members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang came aroundcollectinghafta(protection money), Kalia refused to pay.That“fearlessness”caught the attention of gangster STUNNED BY the exit of seven of their 10 Rajya Sabha members, AAP insiders said Friday they were aware of a storm brewing for the last “week to ten days” following the party decision to remove RaghavChadha,oneofitsmost visiblefaces,astheAAPdeputy leader in the Upper House, literally showing him the door. According to party insiders, AAP national general secretary (organisation)SandeepPathak, a close aide of party chief ArvindKejriwal,hadcalledonthe former Delhi Chief Minister at the latter’s residence in the Capital when he was in town during the special session of Parliament last week. While details related to Pathak’smeetingwithKejriwalremained unclear, sources said he was likely to have conveyed thathenolongerenjoyedmuch supportfromtheparty’sorganisationalranksinPunjabwhere he played a significant role in building the AAP. “We were more than aware of some trouble brewing over the past week to ten days; party workers were aware of several meetingsbetweenbothRaghav (Chadha) and Swati (Maliwal) with senior BJP leaders in Delhi,” a party source claimed. That something was afoot, insiders said, became clear following the Enforcement Directorate’s searches at Rajya Sabha member Ashok Mittal’s Express News Service New Delhi, April 24 DECISION W E ST B E N GA L morE rEP0rtS, PAgE 10 who is conducting the election can’t vote,” he said, adding there are 65 such petitioners. Shamsad submitted that their duty orders initially mentioned their Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers, but those were subsequently deleted. He contended that there was “ex facie arbitrariness” as they were not given any show-cause notice before their names were deleted. The court, however, asked »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 GujARAT PAgE 4 AAP cANdIdAtE cLAImS hE wAS ‘fIrEd UPoN’, ArrEStEd for fALSE comPLAINt »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Jai Jawan 2026 THESUPREMECourtonFriday askedseveralpetitionerswhose names were deleted from the voters’ list following the Special IntensiveRevision(SIR)inWest Bengal, including 65 who said theywereonelectiondutyinthe state,toapproachtheAppellate Tribunals set up to adjudicate such grievances. The directive was issued by abenchofChiefJusticeofIndia Surya Kant, and Justices JoymalyaBagchiandVipulMPancholi,evenasitrefusedtoentertainthepetitioners’pleaagainst their exclusion from the rolls. Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate M R Shamshad said what was happening was ironical. “A person Jai Kisan Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust in collaboration with National Museum, Govt. of India cordially invites you to the nd 32 Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture on “Ethics of Public Life in an Age of Technology” to be delivered by Dr Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud Former Chief Justice of India Date : Saturday, April 25, 2026 Time : 05:00 PM »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Venue : Auditorium, National Museum, Janpath, New Delhi-110011 l HE HAD RETURNED HOME TO AVENGE HIS BROTHER’S KILLING Saudi job to Op Sarp Vinash: J&K man who had key role in 2003 strike on terror stronghold dies at 63 Arun Sharma ists who had established a parallel state there. This week, the hero of HilWHEN HIS brother was killed kaka, Tahir, a Muslim Gujjar , by terrorists in 2002, Fazal diedofaheartattackinUttarakTahir left his job as a supervisor hand and was laid to rest in his at a marble company in Saudi nativeMurrahvillage.Hewas63, Arabia to seek revenge. And andissurvivedbytwowivesand that’s exactly what threeminorsons. PAGE 1 he did: he would be A Special Police seenasinstrumental Officer in Jammu & in the Indian Army’s Kashmir Police, Operation Sarp Vinash, an ex- Tahir began working as a timercise to purge Hilkaka — a ber merchant after his retirehamlet nestled in the moun- ment two years ago and was on tains of Surankote tehsil in a business trip to Uttarakhand Jammu’s Poonch — of terror- when he had a heart attack. Jammu, April 24 anchor Fazal Tahir, 63, died of a heart attack. He was laid to rest in Poonch district’s Murrah village “He called around 8 pm Wednesday to tell me that he had some chest pain and had visitedahospital.Buthesaidhe felt fine thereafter and told me he would return home Thursday. But half an hour later, I got a call from someone accompanying him. He had passed away,” his younger brother Maksood Fazal said. Operation Sarp Vinash marked a turning point against cross-border terrorism in the area. It led to peace in Poonch district and neighbouring Rajouri, both along the Line of Control with Pakistan. Around 80 terrorists were killed during the operation. Among those who died in the operation was paratrooper Sanjog Chhetri of 9 Para, who was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra in 2004. Butseveralbelievetheoperationwouldnothavesucceeded withoutTahirandhisteamof20 people, all of whom gave up lucrative jobs in Saudi Arabia. The hero of Hilkaka When The Indian Express »CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 Bharat Ratna Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Dr Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud (1904-1966) Former Chief Justice of India The memorial lecture can be viewed at: YouTube http://ytube.Lbsim.ac.in Prof. Praveen Gupta Director Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management for Invitation, please contact : Col (Retd.) Ajay Sood (Registrar & CAO, LBSIM) : 9958137595 Dr. Sheetal Singh (Head, LBSM) : 8979175656 Email: cao@Lbsim.ac.in, Lbsmemorialdelhi@gmail.com Organised by : Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Delhi Ahmedabad