In a social media post on 3 January 2026, Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha defended his support for concert workers who called for a strike on the last day of 2025.
Raghav Chadha criticized the platforms for labeling gig workers as “godless” and stressed that he was glad that his parliamentary intervention had sparked a debate in the country.
“Supplier partners across India have gone on strike demanding basic dignity, fair wages, safety, predictable rules and social security. The platform’s response has been to call them ‘transgressions’ and turn the demand for labor into a law and order narrative. This is not just insulting, it’s dangerous. Workers demanding fair wages are not criminals,” he said in his post on X.
Read also | Raghav labels “exploitation without guilt” as Deepinder Goyal defends the gig economy
Chadha said that if the gig worker system “needs the police to run on its biggest day,” then that doesn’t serve as proof that the system is working.
“That’s an admission, no. If you needed the police to keep your workers on the road, they’re not employees. They’re hostages with helmets. I’m glad my intervention in Parliament has started a national debate,” Chadha said in his post on X.
Pro-business attitude
Raghav Chadha said he was “pro-business and pro-startups”, meaning innovation and entrepreneurship in the Union Parliament.
“I’m pro-business and pro-startups. I’ve stood up for innovation and entrepreneurship in Parliament. India needs its builders and risk-takers. I’ll always support them. But I’ll never support exploitation dressed up as progress… Success can’t be built by squeezing every last ounce out of the people who do the hardest work. And obviously asking for a fair wage is politics. Funny how everything is becoming a political threat now.”
“When a day’s income decides rent, electricity or a child’s school fees, signing up on strike day is not approval, it is survival. It is desperation. People remain trapped when there are no better options. And please do not sell people a distant dream to justify current injustice. Promising that workers’ children will do better one day is not the answer to exploitation, is not the measure of commercial exploitation today. moral,” he added.
Read also | ‘Many questions remain unanswered’: Gig labor unions on Goyal’s post
A coordinated effort to criticize?
The AAP MP also alleged that platform board members made a concerted effort to criticize his crackdown on gig workers.
“I would have preferred a healthy discussion about pay, safety and security. Instead, coordinated noise came. Within hours, identical topics flooded our feeds. Board members who never discussed work discovered social media. Influencers who never cared about workers started posting defenses. Like someone sent out a script. I’ve been around long enough to recognize a paid campaign when I saw a tweet sending personal messages to their platform. kindness: your efforts got to me before your tweets,” he said.
Chadha, who raised the issue of compensation for concert workers in the Rajya Sabha, also took a dig at those who chose to target his personal lifestyle.
“My life is transparent. I wonder if the same can be said about the algorithms that decide a worker’s salary. Don’t waste time debating my lifestyle. Focus on improving the lifestyle of gig workers. I’ve been lucky and that’s exactly why I’m going to use my position to raise these demands. If we’ve been given more, it’s our duty to demand justice for those who are given less. The will to build on a simple underlying issue. and security or pressure and uncertainty?” he said.
Read also | Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal reacts to allegations of AI-generated emotional post
Gig workers need better treatment
Chadha concluded by asking that gig workers be treated better on the platforms.
“Progress is whether the people who keep the system running can live with dignity. This is the fight I will fight. In Parliament. Out of Parliament. Until there is accountability. The workers who built these platforms, kilometer by kilometre, deserve better than to be called ‘scumbags’ for asking to be treated as human beings,” he said.
Chadha’s long post X follows a series of posts by Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com and non-executive director of Eternal (Zomato), who questioned those behind the recent call for concert workers to go on strike. Bikhchandani said discussions regarding compensation and social security for delivery partners remained a priority for the company’s management and board, while he took on people who had called for a strike.
“Thank you for making these details public @deepigoyal. I can testify that discussions about the welfare and fair compensation of delivery partners take up a significant percentage of time at board meetings. Management and the board are bothered by this. Now the people who led this campaign and tried unsuccessfully to organize a strike could have written or come and asked for this information and instead they ran it, they prioritized their political campaign and prioritized their political campaign. agenda better,” said Bikhchandani on X.
This development came after Deepinder Goyal shared data regarding the financial structure of the concert model on Zomato. According to Goyal, the average hourly earnings of delivery partners at Zomato will increase by around 10.9 percent year-on-year in 2025 to reach ₹102 compared with ₹92 in 2024, according to the data he shared. The numbers, which do not include tips, reflect steady earnings growth over the longer term for gig workers.
Earlier on Friday, Bikhchandani waded into the gig workers debate when he praised Zomat founder Deepinder Goyal’s comments on the one-day strike by gig workers while indirectly hitting out at those who said the workers were being exploited.
Responding to Goyal’s post on X, Bikhchandani wrote: “Very well written Deepinder Goyal. Every word is true. It beggars belief that a champagne socialite who married a film star and had a designer wedding in Udaipur and a first wedding anniversary in the Maldives has the audacity to shed crocodile tears over the alleged exploitation of Ami gadgo.”
Info Edge founder apparently took a dig at AAP MP Raghav Chadha without naming him.
Earlier, Goyal defended the gig economy, saying it has broken centuries of invisibility for workers, saying that for the first time in history, workers, delivery partners, riders and others are communicating directly with consumers at scale. He mentioned that inequality is personal, which is why the gig economy creates discomfort and heated debate.
(With inputs from news agency ANI)
