In a shock to the Aam Aadmi Party, Raghav Chadha, along with 6 other Rajya Sabha MPs, quit the Arvind Kejriwal-led party on Friday, and merged with the BJP. Those who left with Chadha are the group of seven lawmakers including six from Punjab – Chadha himself, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahney and Harbhajan Singh – and one from Delhi, MP Swati Maliwal. Punjab, which has an AAP government, is set to go to polls in early 2027.
Out of the seven, only three, including Chadha, Pathak and Ashok Mittal, who had replaced Chadha as AAP’s Rajya Sabha deputy leader just days ago have formally joined the BJP. The status of the other 4 remain unknown. The trio had met BJP president Nitin Nabin and joined the party.
A day after the AAP MPs made the big move, party's chief spokesperson and Anandpur Sahib MP Malwinder Singh Kang said that AAP gave too much power to Chadha and ignored Sandeep Pathak. Kang said the party must have kept Chadha “in check.”
“We put Raghav Chadha on a pedestal. I feel the party made a mistake by giving him so much power. I saw him even interfering with the Chief Minister’s decisions on several occasions. He lacked political maturity and experience. We should have kept a check on Raghav Chadha,” he told The Indian Express.Kang also said that Pathak told him that no one had contacted him during the last one year, adding that he might have not left AAP if the party had maintained dialogue with him.
‘BJP’s Operation Lotus’, says Kang
Kang also accused the BJP of “breaking” political parties using any trick possible, saying “they did the same here. They conducted ‘Operation Lotus.”
“ Take West Bengal, Punjab, or any other state — we can’t rule it out. Our leadership needs to be more vigilant and must improve the coordination with the MLAs,” he added.
Responding to a question whether this move will hurt AAP in the upcoming elections and benefit BJP, Kang said that it is in the nature of Punjab to not side with those who betray. He added that better coordination and communication reforms will be required in coming times.
Why is Pathak’s exit a shocker for AAP?
The exit of Pathak, who was the national general secretary (organisation) and the brain behind expanding the party nationally, gave the biggest shock to AAP, according to party insiders.
“The defection of Sandeep Pathak means that the BJP has an insider who is well aware of AAP’s strategy, key persons and civil society contacts,”
— said Sajjan Kumar Singh, political analyst, Policy Research and Center for Contemporary India Study (PRACCIS).
In Delhi, AAP’s political identity has rested on a strong centralised leadership model anchored by Kejriwal. The exit of a figure such as Chadha or Pathak, who played key roles in policy articulation and national outreach, weakens the party’s second line at a time when it is struggling to mount a comeback in the national capital.
What did Chadha say?
Speaking on the exit, Chadha said,"Main unke gunaah me shaamil nahi hona chahta tha (I didn't want to be apart of their sins)".
"We didn't enter politics to make our career, but we left our career to enter politics for the nation. And if the party (AAP) is not working for the nation, it is because the Aam Aadmi Party is not the old Aam Aadmi Party," Raghav Chadha said at the press conference.
The former AAP leader also detailed the reasons for keeping a distance with the party activities, which finally ended with a rift.
“Since the last few years, some of you were asking, 'Raghav ji, why have you maintained distance with party activities. I didn't used to say anything then. I was trying to make things better. But I will tell you the real reason today. The reason is that ‘Mai unke gunah me shaamil nahi hona chahta tha. Mai unki dosti ke qaabil nahi tha, kyui mai unke gunah me shaamil nahi tha’ (I didn't want to be apart of their sins. I was not worthy of their friendship because I was not part of their sins.)” he said.
In AAP’s most recent rift with Chadha, the former AAP leader was removed from his post of deputy leader of the party from Rajya Sabha and it was requested that he should not be allotted speaking time from AAP’s quota in the upper house.
