The internal rift within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has escalated into a public confrontation following the party’s decision on April 2, 2026, to replace Raghav Chadha as its Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha with Ashok Kumar Mittal. The move was accompanied by a startling directive from the AAP leadership to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat, requesting that Chadha no longer be allotted speaking time from the party’s official quota. Senior party leaders, including Saurabh Bharadwaj and Atishi, have openly criticized Chadha, accusing him of moving away from the party’s core political battles to focus on “soft PR.” They pointed to his recent parliamentary interventions—which focused on consumer-centric issues like the high price of samosas at airports, 28-day telecom recharge cycles, and the stress of 10-minute delivery apps—as evidence that he is avoiding confrontations with the BJP-led central government.
The party’s grievances against Chadha extend beyond his choice of topics. Leaders alleged that he remained silent during critical moments, such as the arrest of AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and the subsequent protests, during which Chadha was reportedly undergoing eye treatment in the UK. Furthermore, the leadership slammed him for refusing to sign an opposition-led impeachment motion against the Chief Election Commissioner and for failing to speak on the LPG crisis triggered by the ongoing US-Iran conflict. Bharadwaj remarked that for a small party with limited parliamentary time, raising “trivial” issues like samosa rates is a waste of a vital platform that should be used to confront the BJP. While the party frames the replacement as a routine administrative change to allow other members to learn, the public nature of the “samosa vs. hard politics” debate suggests a significant fallout between the AAP leadership and its once-prominent “boy wonder.” Chadha has largely remained defiant, suggesting a potential backlash and asserting that his emphasis on middle-class issues is a form of advocacy for the common man.
