Blow to AAP: Raghav Chadha and 7 Rajya Sabha MPs to Join BJP
AAP MP Raghav Chadha Image credit X.com
Chadha says he was the “right man in the wrong party.” Sanjay Singh calls the seven MPs traitors to Punjab. The timing — ahead of 2027 state polls — could not be worse for Kejriwal.
By AMIT KUMAR
New Delhi, April 24, 2026 — In a stunning political development, Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha and seven AAP colleagues resigned, while announcing move to merge with BJP, invoking anti-defection law provisions — delivering one of the sharpest blows to Arvind Kejriwal’s party since its founding.
In the most damaging internal rupture since its founding, the Aam Aadmi Party suffered a body blow on Friday when senior leader Raghav Chadha led seven Rajya Sabha MPs out of the party.
Chadha, alongside fellow MPs Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak, resigned and announced they would merge with BJP, invoking the constitutional provisions for a two-thirds majority split under the anti-defection law. The group submitted their request formally to the Rajya Sabha Chairman on April 24.
Chadha’s departure was emotionally charged. “The Aam Aadmi Party, which I nurtured with my blood and sweat and to which I gave 15 years of my youth, has now completely deviated from its principles, values, and core morals. The party is no longer working for the country or in the national interest, but for personal gain,” he said, adding: “I am the right man in the wrong party.”
The seven MPs — Chadha, Pathak, Mittal, Rajendra Gupta, Vikram Sahni, Swati Maliwal, and cricketer Harbhajan Singh — constitute roughly two-thirds of AAP’s Rajya Sabha strength, a critical threshold for the constitutional merger provision to hold. Chadha cited his recent removal as AAP’s Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha, accusing the party of silencing him despite four years of raising citizen-centric issues including gig workers’ rights and food prices.
AAP’s response was swift and scathing. At a press conference, senior MP Sanjay Singh called out each defector by name: “Today, seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs have joined the BJP. The party made Raghav Chadha an MLA and an MP. What did the people of Punjab not give him? How much love did they show by sending him to the Rajya Sabha? And now he has gone into the lap of the BJP. These seven individuals have stabbed the people of Punjab in the back.” Singh accused all seven of betraying the voters who elevated them from ground level to the upper house of Parliament.
The timing amplifies the damage. AAP has already lost Delhi to BJP and Punjab — its last major stronghold — faces assembly elections in 2027. The departure of Punjab-linked MPs like Chadha, Pathak, and Mittal strikes at the party’s organizational network in the state precisely when consolidation matters most. BJP, which has been methodically expanding its Punjab footprint, gains both optics and ground-level credibility from the influx.
Opposition leaders have pointed to what they call India’s “washing machine” politics — the pattern whereby corruption investigations allegedly stall or dissolve after leaders switch to the ruling party. AAP supporters have echoed this narrative. Chadha and his group reject it, framing their exit as a principled response to internal authoritarianism.
This is not AAP’s first such crisis. Since 2015, founders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were expelled over concerns about personality cult politics, followed by Kumar Vishwas, Kapil Mishra, Shazia Ilmi, and dozens of MLAs — nearly all citing Kejriwal’s centralised control. Friday’s defection is, however, the largest single exodus by parliamentary representation.
Whether it triggers further churn or hardens ranks around Kejriwal, one thing is clear: with Punjab on the line and its Rajya Sabha strength decimated, AAP enters 2027 in its most precarious condition yet.
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