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 Bharatiya Janata Party. Those who left with Chadha are a group of seven legislators, including six from Punjab – Chadha himself, Ashok Mittal, Sandeep Pathak, Rajinder Gupta, Vikram Sahni and Harbhajan Singh – and one from Delhi, MP Swati Maliwal. Punjab, which has an AAP government, is scheduled to go to the polls in early 2027.
Of the seven, only three, including Chadha, Pathak and Ashok Mittal, who replaced Chadha as AAP’s Rajya Sabha deputy speaker just days ago, have officially joined the BJP. The status of the other four remains unknown. The trio met BJP president Nitin Nabin and joined the party.
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A day after AAP MPs made the big move, party chief spokesperson and Anandpur MP Sahib Malwinder Singh Kang said that AAP has given too much power to Chadha and ignored Sandeep Pathak. Kang said the party must have kept Chada “under surveillance.”
“We have put Raghav Chadha on a pedestal. I feel the party made a mistake by giving him too much power. I saw him even interfering in the chief minister’s decisions on several occasions. He lacked political maturity and experience. We should have kept an eye on Raghav Chadha,” he said. Indian Express.
Kang also said Pathak told him that no one had contacted him over the past year, adding that he might not have left AAP if the party had continued dialogue with him.
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“BJP’s Operation Lotus,” says Kang.
Kang also accused the BJP of “smashing” political parties using any possible trick, saying, “They did the same thing here. They conducted ‘Operation Lotus’.”
“Take West Bengal, Punjab, or any other state – we cannot rule that out. Our leadership has to be more vigilant and has to improve coordination with local multilateral authorities,” he added.
Asked whether the move would hurt the AAP in the upcoming elections and benefit the BJP, Kang said it was the nature of Punjab not to side with those who betray. He added that better coordination and communication reforms will be needed in the coming times.
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Why is Pathak’s exit a shock to AAP?
The exit of Pathak, who was the national general secretary (organisation) and the mastermind behind the party’s expansion at the national level, has given the biggest shock to the AAP, according to party insiders.
“Sandeep Pathak’s defection means that the BJP has an insider who is well aware of AAP’s strategy, key people and civil society connections,” said Sajan Kumar Singh, a political analyst at the Center for Policy Research and Study of Contemporary India (PRACCIS).
In Delhi, the party’s political identity was based on a strong centralized leadership model anchored by Kejriwal. The exit of a figure like Chadha or Pathak, who have played key roles in policy formulation and national outreach, weakens the party’s second line at a time when it is struggling to make a comeback in the national capital.
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What did Chadha say?
Speaking on the way out, Chadha said:“Main unke gunaah me shamil nahi hona chahta tha (I did not want to be apart from their sins).”
“We did not enter politics to make a career, but we left our career to enter politics for the nation. 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 his reasons for staying away from party activities, which eventually ended in a row.
Since the past few years, some of you have been asking: “Raghav ji, why did you maintain your distance from party activities. I wasn’t used to saying anything then. I was trying to make things better. But I’ll tell you the real reason today. The reason is that, “Mai unke gunah me shamil nahi hona chahta tha. Mai unki dosti ke qaabil nahi tha, kyui mai unke gunah me shamil nahi (I didn’t want to be apart of their sins. I didn’t deserve their friendship because I wasn’t part of their sins.)” he said.
In the recent row between AAP and Chadha, the former AAP leader was removed from his post as deputy leader of the party from Rajya Sabha and was asked not to allocate speaking time from AAP’s Senate quota.
