‘Phulera panchayat’: AAP questions why Delhi CM’s husband attended official meeting

The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday questioned why Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta’s husband participated in a government meeting, describing it as “unconstitutional” and accusing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of “mocking” democracy.

In a post on X, Aam Aadmi Party leader Saurabh Bharadwaj shared photographs that showed the chief minister’s husband, Delhi-based businessman Manish Gupta, seated next to her during a meeting with bureaucrats.

The photographs, posted by Rekha Gupta on her social media handles, were from a review meeting held on Saturday at Jan Seva Sadan in the Shalimar Bagh constituency.

आज मुख्यमंत्री जनसेवा सदन में शालीमार बाग विधानसभा में चल रहे विकास कार्यों की समीक्षा की।

बैठक में अधिकारियों को निर्देश दिए कि वे नियमित रूप से क्षेत्र में जारी कार्यों की प्रगति का आकलन करें और तय समयसीमा पर विस्तृत स्टेटस रिपोर्ट दें। साथ ही, पूर्ण एवं लंबित परियोजनाओं की… pic.twitter.com/vkgFIAGWt4— Rekha Gupta (@gupta_rekha) September 7, 2025

Sharing the photographs, Bharadwaj wrote that the Delhi government had turned “into Phulera Panchayat”. The AAP leader was referring to the fictional village of “Phulera” from the web series Panchayat in which the husband of a woman sarpanch informally exercises authority.

“Just as in Phulera’s panchayat, where the woman sarpanch’s husband acted as the sarpanch, today in Delhi, the CM’s husband is sitting in official meetings,” he said...

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