A senior AAP leader on Friday alleged that Chadha, once the party’s and party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s blue-eyed boy, had tried to get himself designated as the party’s Leader in the Rajya Sabha when Sanjay Singh was behind bars following his arrest in the Delhi excise policy case in October 2023. This and his actions over the past year had influenced the party’s decision, he added.
Silenced, not defeated
My message to the ‘aam aadmi’
—
खामोश करवाया गया हूँ, हारा नहीं हूँ‘आम आदमी’ को मेरे संदेश pic.twitter.com/poUwxsu0S3
— Raghav Chadha (@raghav_chadha) April 3, 2026
“One of the biggest factors that appears to have weighed on the party’s senior leadership is Chadha engaging in behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to get himself designated the AAP’s Leader in the Rajya Sabha when Sanjay ji was behind bars following his arrest in the excise policy case in October 2023. When this failed, he went to Punjab, where he started throwing his weight around and interfered in government matters by citing his closeness to the national leadership in Delhi,” the AAP functionary said.
Earlier on Friday, Chadha, in a video message, accused the AAP of muzzling him, while senior party leaders accused him of turning his back on the party when the going got tough out of “fear and self-interest”.
Captioned “Silenced, not defeated My message to the ‘aam aaadmi’”, Chadha, in the video, expressed gratitude to his supporters. “Did I commit a crime, make a mistake, or have I done something wrong? I am asking this today because the Aam Aadmi Party has told the Rajya Sabha Secretariat that Raghav Chadha be prohibited from speaking in Parliament … Why would someone want to stop me from speaking?” he asked.
“Whenever I talk, I speak about the country’s aam aadmi; I submitted the issue of expensive food at airports, spoke about the problems of…delivery partners, raised the issue of impure food, spoke of loot from toll plazas to bank charges’ loot … this benefitted the ‘aam aadmi’ of this country, but what loss did they cause to the Aam Aadmi Party?” he said, thanking his supporters for their “unlimited love and encouragement”. Responding directly to his party, he said, “Do not interpret my silence as defeat, I am that river which turns into a flood when it is time.”
Asked about the AAP’s allegation that Chadha had tried to get himself appointed the party’s Leader in the Rajya Sabha in 2023, the MP’s office refused to comment.
Some AAP leaders also spoke of the “logical possibility” of Chadha eventually joining the BJP, accusing the MP of trying to “enhance his profile in the Rajya Sabha”, while the party faced an existential crisis following the arrest of its top leaders.
‘You raise soft issues’
AAP Delhi chief and former minister Saurabh Bharadwaj responded to Chadha’s video with his own, titled “Jo darr gaya, samjho marr gaya (He who is afraid, consider them dead)”.
“All of us are Arvind Kejriwal ji’s soldiers and had learned just one thing — jo darr gaya, samjho marr gaya. We were supposed to raise the issues of the people while looking the government of the day straight in the eye … the government does not care about soft PR in Parliament, where a small party is allotted limited time. Raising larger national issues is more important than speaking about samosas,” he said, accusing his party colleague of raising “soft issues”.
Bharadwaj accused Chadha of recently not signing the Opposition’s notice to introduce a motion to remove Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar at a time when “bona fide voters (are) getting cut (from electoral rolls)”. “You do not walk out when the Opposition does, you did not raise any issue demanding answers from the government or the Prime Minister; how will politics work with such fear?” Bharadwaj said.
The senior AAP leader also alleged that the MP had not raised matters linked to the interests of Punjab, which he represents in the Upper House, and had “remained mum” on the action initiated against 160 AAP workers in Gujarat.
“Most of our leaders were in jail; Arvind Kejriwal ji, despite being (Delhi) Chief Minister, was arrested in a false case – at that time too, you were not in the country and went into hiding somewhere … for the sake of the nation, we need to raise issues fearlessly and courageously while looking at the BJP right in the eye,” he said, adding, “The BJP, since yesterday, has been supporting you on social media. You should think about this and see where you started from and where you have reached, what the country actually needs and how you can do better.”
Time allotment row
A senior AAP leader said Chadha was removed as Deputy Leader following a “clarification” on the time allotted to MPs to speak in the House.
“We were under the impression that Chadha was being allotted time by the Chair in his capacity as an ordinary Member of the House. But it was recently conveyed to us that he was engaging in self-promotion on time allotted to the party’s 10 MPs in total, which Delhi MP Sanjay Singh, as the party’s Leader in the House, rightfully has the prerogative to assign to individual AAP MPs,” the leader said.
This, his manoeuvrings in 2023, and “six-month disappearance” following Kejriwal’s arrest last year appear to have been factored into the AAP’s decision.
“When we reached out to him regarding his absence, he said that he had been warned to steer clear of the AAP if he did not want to risk being arrested in an alleged scam related to the Delhi Jal Board, of which he was a member during the AAP’s rule. We let him be only to see him appear at page 3 parties, on television shows and meeting industrialists close to the BJP abroad,” a leader alleged.
