Very few politicians have witnessed a meteoric rise like Raghav Chadha in the Aam Aadmi Party and India’s Parliament. He was AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s blue-eyed boy. After losing the 2019 Lok Sabha election from South Delhi in May, Chadha returned within nine months, walking alongside the party’s top brass as an MLA in the Delhi Assembly.
During the 2022 Punjab campaign, he was part of the core team that called the shots and was soon rewarded for his role in the party’s victory, earning a nomination to the Rajya Sabha. By 2024, Chadha, along with Sanjay Singh, was involved in negotiating alliance terms and seat-sharing arrangements with INDIA bloc partners.
As someone who has closely tracked the AAP, I can say without an ounce of doubt that Chadha didn’t need an appointment to meet the party chief at his peak. He was Kejriwal’s Man Friday for Punjab and effectively served as Delhi’s “eyes and ears” in the state. While the AAP chose Bhagwant Mann as Chief Minister, Chadha’s influence and political acumen remained unmatched compared to any other minister in Punjab.
By then, Lutyens’ Delhi knew that one of the direct lines to Arvind Kejriwal was through Raghav Chadha.
Cut to the Delhi excise policy case. The AAP top brass was in deep trouble. Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was the first to be arrested, followed by then Health Minister Satyendar Jain in a separate case. Eventually, the Enforcement Directorate reached Arvind Kejriwal. While there were growing murmurs within the party about Chadha’s rising equations with colleagues, no AAP leader spoke openly against him, largely due to his proximity to the party chief.
When the former Delhi Chief Minister was in jail, Chadha – along with party leader Sandeep Pathak and Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal – was among the limited number of individuals permitted to meet him in Tihar Jail.
It was Chadha’s prolonged absence from India during the AAP chief’s arrest that added fuel to the fire. “Where is Raghav Chadha when the party is in deep crisis?” even staunch AAP supporters began asking on social media.
He tried to salvage the situation with a photo or two after Kejriwal’s release from jail. But by 2025, dissatisfaction against him within the AAP cadre had become glaringly obvious.
The Rajya Sabha MP’s last significant assignment from 5 Ferozeshah Road was to scrutinise Delhi’s electoral rolls. The party, however, lost its Delhi fortress to the BJP in February 2025. What followed was an organisational rejig: former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was given charge of Punjab affairs, while responsibilities in Goa, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh were redistributed.
Chadha’s name, however, did not feature on any of the lists. That did not come as a surprise to me. Rather, it felt like my reading of the party’s internal rumblings had finally been publicly validated.
WHAT WENT WRONG? HOW DID THE FALL BEGIN?
During the current Budget Session of Parliament, when the Trinamool Congress moved an impeachment petition against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Raghav Chadha’s signature was missing. He did not sign it. You will keep hearing about this in the days to come.
However, sources familiar with the sequence of events told me, “Raghav Chadha didn’t sign the TMC’s petition. That is true. But he refused, saying, ‘Let me speak to my party first. I need to consult my party.’ It possibly wasn’t the best time or day to approach him. It could have been like one bad day, bad mood kind of situation.”
But was this enough to remove Chadha as the AAP’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha? Certainly not. Being a favourite of the party chief comes with its own risks. Many within the party envied his meteoric rise. From Punjab to Delhi, people had their own reasons. However, his absence during the AAP’s toughest days had become a sore point.
An AAP insider once confirmed to me, “Raghav had informed the party chief about his prolonged absence, and it was approved by the top leadership.”
Some leaders believed he got too much, too early in the AAP.
“Raghav’s rise within the party has been unbelievable. While workers like us had to run long races just to get a basic pat on the back, Raghav would get a medal for a much shorter run,” one of his colleagues told me. “He deserved to be the face of the AAP in the media, his personality was charming. He remained a crucial part of the parleys in the INDIA bloc. The AAP invested in him, but when it was time to harvest, to encash that investment, Raghav was axed.”
Another senior party leader told me, “It seems like a mutual distancing. The party didn’t try to reconcile, and Chadha didn’t make enough effort either. When the party high command loses interest in you, it becomes difficult to repair bridges, and he didn’t make those efforts either.”
Now recall: did Kejriwal’s blue-eyed boy make even a single social media post when the AAP’s top brass was discharged in the CBI’s excise policy case? That tells you what his senior colleague was pointing at.
Chadha, a media-savvy politician, didn’t even issue a routine “Satyamev Jayate” remark, unlike when Kejriwal was granted bail in the graft case.
One of the AAP’s senior strategists, while explaining why Chadha was replaced by Ashok Mittal in the Rajya Sabha, told me, “Raghav wasn’t serving the party’s parliamentary agenda. Any political party would want its deputy leader to utilise the time allotted to him on issues central to the party’s priorities. He was busy building his image.” It was further emphasised, “Instead of serving the AAP’s interests, he was busy basking in his own glory. He chose to prioritise content for his personal reels over real issues concerning the party.”
Notably, Lutyens’ Delhi has been abuzz with speculation over whether Chadha could join the BJP ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls. A colleague in Parliament said, “One may call Chadha selfish, but I wouldn’t call him unfaithful. He didn’t make enough effort to mend his ways; the AAP leadership took its call.”
Some AAP leaders feel there was no need to hastily remove Chadha from his Rajya Sabha role. Whether or not to allot him time was the prerogative of the parliamentary party chief, Sanjay Singh. His role could have been curtailed without such a decision.
Others point out that the message is aimed at Punjab leaders, that the bridges between Raghav and 5 Ferozeshah Road are burnt.
Raghav Chadha’s fall within the AAP ranks may appear dramatic, but it is hardly surprising. Rather for us, the writing had long been on the wall.
– Ends
