The rift within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has finally spilled into the public domain with Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha’s stinging attack on the party leadership. Chadha’s outburst comes a day after he was removed as the party’s deputy leader in the upper house of the Parliament, which indicates a major rift between Chadha and Arvind Kejriwal.
In a video message shared on X, a visibly defiant Chadha claimed the demotion was a calculated attempt to muzzle him. He questioned whether it had become a "crime" to champion the concerns of the common man on the floor of the House. "Whenever I am given the floor, I raise the issues that matter to the public— topics that are often ignored in Parliament," he said. "Is it wrong to speak for the people? I ask this because my own party has now formally requested the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to stop me from speaking."
The internal friction was formalised on Thursday when AAP leadership wrote to the Secretariat to remove Chadha from his senior position, nominating Punjab MP Ashok Mittal to take his place. Chadha, however, was quick to point out the irony of the situation. He mentioned his recent interventions in the Parliament on a range of issues, from the high prices of airport food to the situation of gig workers, bank scandals, and mobile phone plan prices, as examples of his commitment to the "aam aadmi" or common man. "These discussions helped the public, but how did they upset the Aam Aadmi Party?" he challenged, before delivering a sharp parting shot to his detractors: "I am silenced, not defeated."
While the party has attempted to downplay the drama — with Ashok Mittal insisting that AAP remains a democratic space where Chadha will eventually have his turn to speak — the optics suggest otherwise. Chadha’s marginalisation follows a lengthy period of uncharacteristic silence and his noticeable absence from key party events. He now joins Swati Maliwal as the second high-profile Rajya Sabha MP to have a public and bitter breakdown in relations with Kejriwal’s inner circle.
Once considered one of Kejriwal’s closest confidants and a promising young politician in Indian politics, Chadha’s reputation has been changing since his stay in a medical facility outside the country in early 2024, amidst the arrest of AAP’s top leaders in the case of the excise policy scam. Chadha’s continued silence even after a Delhi court recently discharged Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in the same case has only added more fuel to the rumours about Chadha’s possible falling out with the party he once helped build.
Also read: Raghav Chadha removed as AAP’s Rajya Sabha deputy leader
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