New Delhi, April 24: Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva launched a scathing attack on Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal on Friday, April 25, accusing him of transforming a once-promising political movement into a personal autocracy. Sachdeva's remarks came on the same day that seven of AAP's ten Rajya Sabha MPs — including prominent figures Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, and Swati Maliwal — formally announced their merger with the Bharatiya Janata Party, marking one of the most dramatic collapses of a regional political outfit in recent Indian political history.

Sachdeva's Broadside: From Convener to Dictator

Virendra Sachdeva said that Kejriwal had originally positioned himself as a crusader for political change when he founded the Aam Aadmi Party, but swiftly mutated from a party convener into an unchecked dictator. He argued that Kejriwal weaponised power and dragged the party into a vortex of corruption, driving away its own founding members one by one.

Sachdeva noted that founding figures ranging from Shashi Bhushan to Raghav Chadha had progressively distanced themselves from Kejriwal — a pattern, he said, that is impossible to dismiss as coincidence. The Delhi BJP President described Kejriwal's decade-long governance of Delhi as a calculated model of exploitation designed primarily to expand his personal political footprint.

Punjab Angle: Industry, Farmers, and the Drug Crisis

Sachdeva escalated his attack by alleging that for more than four years, Kejriwal has been systematically exploiting Punjab's industrial base and farming community to bankroll political campaigns in Gujarat and Goa. He further alleged that Punjab's youth are being pushed deeper into drug addiction under AAP's watch — a charge that resonates strongly given that Punjab has consistently ranked among India's most drug-affected states, according to government and civil society data.

This context is significant. AAP swept to power in Punjab in March 2022 on a core promise of eliminating the drug menace within the state. Critics and opposition parties have repeatedly questioned the party's delivery on this commitment, citing persistent reports of drug trafficking and addiction in border districts.

Sandeep Pathak's Exit: A Symbolic Blow to AAP's Core

Of all the departures, Sachdeva highlighted the resignation of Sandeep Pathak — AAP's Organisation General Secretary — as the most symbolically devastating. He argued that the Organisation General Secretary is, by definition, the custodian of a party's ideological soul, and that Pathak's exit signals that both the party and its convener have fundamentally abandoned their founding principles.

Pathak was not merely an administrator — he was the architect of AAP's organisational expansion across multiple states. His departure, alongside Raghav Chadha and Swati Maliwal, strips AAP of three of its most recognisable faces outside Delhi. Sachdeva called on Kejriwal to introspect and fundamentally reassess his leadership style in light of these mass defections.

BJP Spokesperson Targets Sanjay Singh's Response

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor weighed in on AAP MP Sanjay Singh's press conference following the exodus, describing visible frustration and agitation on Singh's face. Kapoor criticised Singh for labelling former colleagues — Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, and Swati Maliwal — as traitors and invoking the party's supposed favours to them.

Kapoor pointedly noted that these three leaders had each dedicated 15 years of their lives to building AAP and Kejriwal's political career, only to be publicly insulted at the moment of their departure. He called it a reflection of the culture of ingratitude that has come to define the party's leadership.

Bigger Picture: What This Means for AAP's National Ambitions

This mass defection arrives at a particularly vulnerable moment for AAP. The party, which once harboured serious national ambitions and positioned itself as a pan-India alternative to both the BJP and the Congress, now faces an existential crisis of credibility. Having lost power in Delhi in the February 2025 Assembly elections, the departure of 7 out of 10 Rajya Sabha MPs further erodes its upper house presence and legislative influence.

Notably, the three departing MPs — Chadha, Pathak, and Maliwal — were not peripheral figures. They represented AAP's youth-driven, reform-oriented brand. Their exit raises serious questions about whether the party can retain relevance in Punjab, its only remaining state government, ahead of the next state elections. Political analysts suggest that the BJP's absorption of these MPs is as much a strategic move to weaken AAP in Punjab as it is an ideological realignment.

With AAP now reduced to a rump in the Rajya Sabha and under mounting pressure in Punjab, all eyes will be on whether Kejriwal can arrest the organisational freefall — or whether further defections are imminent in the weeks ahead.