3 min readNew DelhiApr 24, 2026 06:16 PM IST
Three weeks after he was removed as the Aam Aadmi Party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Raghav Chadha announced on Friday that he and six of the AAP MPs in the Upper House had “merged the party with the BJP”.
BJP sources neither confirmed nor denied whether the party’s doors had been opened to the AAP and its MPs, including Lovely Professional University founder Ashok Mittal, who replaced Chadha as Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha on April 2. However, seven AAP MPs met BJP chief Nitin Nabin at the party headquarters.
The AAP has 10 Members in the Rajya Sabha – seven from Punjab and three from Delhi. Chadha announced that seven of the ten had decided to merge with the BJP. They included Mittal, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjeet Singh Sawhney, Swati Maliwal, cricketer Harbhajan Singh and the AAP’s general secretary (organisation), Sandeep Pathak.
This would effectively reduce AAP’s representation in the Rajya Sabha to three: Sanjay Singh, ND Gupta and Balbir Singh Seechewal. Besides Mittal, whose official residence on Feroze Shah Road AAP leader Kejriwal was occupying so far, Pathak shared the stage with Chadha at the press meet this afternoon.
AAP insiders pointed out that the episode followed Enforcement Directorate raids at Mittal’s premises in Punjab and at LPU.
The exit of Pathak, considered one of Kejriwal’s close aides and “a blue-eyed” boy within party ranks, was admittedly a shock for the party. Sources said the decision was “clearly taken out of fear that was visible” on Chadha’s and Pathak’s faces.
Party insiders said they were expecting a “move” by Chadha after he was replaced as the party’s deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha. Chadha, it is alleged, sought to replace AAP’s Leader in the House, Sanjay Singh, through some manoeuvring when Singh was behind bars in the alleged excise policy case.
Story continues below this ad
A former professor at IIT Delhi, Pathak is considered a “numbers person” and is understood to have played a key role in the party’s electoral arithmetic. He is said to have played a key role in the selection of party candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the 2025 Delhi polls, both of which saw AAP perform poorly.
Pathak, sources said, was held responsible for choosing candidates “erroneously,” and the leadership was not happy.
Mittal, the founder of LPU, is among three prominent businessmen from Punjab to have entered the AAP’s fold through the Rajya Sabha route following its electoral sweep of the state in the last Assembly election. The others include Gupta, chief of the Trident Group, and Sawhney.
