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‘Should have kept Raghav Chadha in check': AAP Punjab MP shares party's ‘mistake’, has an advice for future
Malvinder Singh Kang, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Anandpur Sahib, said that AAP should have considered leaders from Punjab for the Rajya Sabha.
The rebellion of seven Rajya Sabha MPs, including Raghav Chadha, and their subsequent merger with the BJP, has exposed cracks within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). With the stakes now particularly high for AAP in poll-bound Punjab, a senior party leader from the state has reflected on what may have gone wrong.
AAP Lok Sabha member Malvinder Singh Kang told The Indian Express that Raghav Chadha, who led the rebellion on Friday, was given “too much power” in the party and called it a “mistake” on the AAP's part.
The AAP currently holds power only in Punjab and six of the seven Rajya Sabha MPs who left the party belong to the state.
Kang also called for AAP's better coordination and dialogue with MLAs, MPs and ministers in Punjab, with just months left for state Assembly elections, according to a report by news agency PTI. Follow live updates on Raghav Chadha-led rebellion here.
Kang, who is a MP from Anandpur Sahib which happened to be the constiteuncy where Chadha cast his vote in 2024, said that AAP should have considered ground-level leaders from Punjab for the Rajya Sabha.
The party's picks for Punjab’s Rajya Sabha seats have long drawn criticism, with Raghav Chadha being a Delhi-based leader despite ethnically being a Punjabi, and Sandeep Pathak hailing from Chhattisgarh. The rest included cricketer Harbhajan Singh and three Punjabi industrialists who chose to remain cautious or aloof in their AAP stints.
‘Raghav Chadha put on a pedestal’
AAP MP Kang asserted that Raghav Chadha held immense power, something which eventually proved to be a setback for the party. “I feel the party made a mistake by giving him so much power…We should have kept a check on Raghav Chadha,” Kang said in the IE interview, further adding that he even saw Chadha interfering in CM Bhagwant Mann's decisions. The party has consistently denied any such interference.
“There’s no two opinion on this. We put Raghav Chadha on a pedestal,” Kang reportedly said. According to PTI, Kang also highlighted the AAP's lack of communication with lawmakers in Punjab and shared the example of Sandeep Pathak, one of the seven MPs who merged with the BJP.
"Sandeep Pathak had told me that he had not been contacted in the past one year. Had he been contacted regularly, he would not have left the party," Kang was quoted as saying.
Pathak played a crucial role in steering the AAP towards ousting the Congress from power and securing a big win in the 2022 elections. His exit from the AAP is being seen as a big concern for the party ahead of elections in the state.
"Feedback should be taken from the right persons, and those workers who are working at the ground level should be empowered," Kang further said.
How the rebellion hurts AAP's chances in Punjab
The AAP was dealt a big blow on Friday as Raghav Chadha, alongside leaders Ashok Mittal and Sandeep Pathak, announced the merger of seven AAP MPs with the BJP.
The AAP had 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha before seven of them decided to form a bloc and merge with the BJP, a figure that made up 2/3rd of the party's total legislators in Rajya Sabha. Punjab takes centrestage in this dynamic, given how six of the seven MPs who rebelled against the AAP are from Punjab, leaving the party with just one MP from the state in the Rajya Sabha: Balbir Singh Seechewal.
Apart from the names mentioned above, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Sahney (all from Punjab) and Swati Maliwal, also switched sides to the BJP.
‘Gaddar' storm against AAP MPs in Punjab
Hours after the Rajya Sabha MPs announced their decision to merge with the BJP, graffiti of ‘Gaddar’ targeting the rebel leaders was seen in parts of Punjab.
The outer walls and the main gate of former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, the main entrance of the Phagwara campus of Lovely Professional University, owned by Ashok Mittal, and walls outside the residence of Rajinder Gupta were seen spray painted with the term ‘Gaddar’.
A day before the big uproar in Punjab, chief minister Bhagwant Mann downplayed the rebellion, saying the MPs weren't crucial to the party. “These six-seven MPs were not the party. They were not mass leaders. None of them is capable of becoming even a village sarpanch," he had said.
