Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha made a late-night visit to the iconic Giani Tea Stall in Amritsar, where he sipped traditional Amritsari tea and held informal discussions with locals on the political landscape of Punjab. The stop, which stretched well past midnight, added a grassroots dimension to Chadha's ongoing political engagements in the state.

The Midnight Chai Stop

Giani Tea Stall is a beloved fixture in Amritsar's food culture, widely recognised for its signature Amritsari tea and a loyal following built partly through social media. The spot has become a go-to for visitors and public figures seeking an authentic slice of the city's street culture.

Sharing photographs of the visit on X on Saturday, Chadha said, 'After wrapping up the day's schedule, I reached the famous Giani Tea Stall in Amritsar. Amid sips of tea, discussions on Punjab's politics stretched late into the night with folks around.' He also shared a light-hearted Punjabi couplet celebrating tea: 'Nahse mei naash hai, chai mei vishwas hai. Kuch logo mei bhram hai, lekin chai mei dum hai' — roughly translating to: 'Ruined by addiction, belief in tea; some have illusions, but tea has strength!'

Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra in Pathankot

The tea stall visit came a day after Chadha joined BJP National President Nitin Nabin in Pathankot on Friday to flag off the Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra — a campaign aimed at highlighting the drug crisis gripping the state and mobilising public sentiment against it.

Posting on X after the Pathankot event, Chadha wrote that he had met families living through the devastating impact of drugs, describing their accounts as a painful reminder of the human cost of the crisis. 'Drugs don't just destroy lives. They destroy families,' he said.

BJP's Allegations Against the AAP Government

Chadha alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab had promised to eradicate the drug menace during its campaign but had failed to deliver on that commitment. He claimed that over the last four and a half years, the problem had worsened significantly, with the supply of drugs — particularly 'chitta' — reportedly booming and flowing freely across the state.

This comes amid a broader BJP push to corner the AAP administration on the drug issue ahead of future electoral cycles. The Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra, flagged off in Pathankot in the presence of the BJP national president, is being positioned as a state-wide campaign to sustain pressure on the ruling party.

What to Watch

Chadha's ground-level outreach — combining informal public interactions with structured campaign events — signals an intensifying BJP effort to build a political narrative around governance failures in Punjab. How the AAP government responds to these escalating allegations, and whether the Nasha Mukt Yatra gains traction beyond urban centres, will determine the campaign's political impact in the weeks ahead.