Sisodia’s Punjab Play, Bhardwaj’s Delhi Bid: AAP Rejig is Kejriwal’s Last Stand

The reshuffle is a calculated jab to reclaim Delhi that slipped through Kejriwal's fingers, writes Sayantan Ghosh.

The AAP trio: Manish Sisodia, Arvind Kejriwal, Saurabh Bhardwaj. Both men, shadowed by their leader’s towering legacy, must navigate a landscape littered with the AAP’s broken promises and the BJP’s relentless ascent, writes Sayantan Ghosh.

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint) 

When the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept Punjab in 2022, it was a triumph of Arvind Kejriwal’s vision—a grassroots rebellion against the old guard, promising clean governance and farmer-friendly reforms. Fast forward to March 2025, and the party’s Delhi fortress lies in ruins, toppled by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after a decade of AAP dominance.

The 8 February election results – 48 seats to the BJP, a mere 22 for the AAP – sent shockwaves through the party, with Kejriwal himself tasting defeat in New Delhi by over 4,000 votes to Parvesh Verma.

Manish Sisodia, his trusted deputy, fell in Jangpura by a razor-thin 675 votes, and Saurabh Bhardwaj lost Greater Kailash by 3,188. The verdict was a brutal rebuke, exposing cracks in the AAP’s once-invincible armour.

On 21 March, Kejriwal, still the party’s unyielding supremo, unveiled a high-stakes reshuffle: Sisodia, the education reform poster boy, was dispatched to steer Punjab, the AAP’s last bastion, while Bhardwaj, a seasoned loyalist, was tasked with resurrecting Delhi’s shattered unit.

This isn’t just a tactical pivot—it’s Kejriwal casting his shadow over two battlegrounds, testing his lieutenants’ mettle amid a storm of legal woes and political peril.

Sisodia, fresh from a 17-month jail stint over the liquor policy case, carries Kejriwal’s blueprint to a Punjab roiled by farmer unrest and governance critiques. Similarly, making Satyendar Jain, the brain behind Delhi Mohalla Clinics, the co-incharge of Punjab means governance expertise is the new focus in Punjab.

Bhardwaj, meanwhile, faces a Delhi now under the BJP rule, where the AAP’s opposition role demands grit and guile.

Both men, shadowed by their leader’s towering legacy, must navigate a landscape littered with the AAP’s broken promises and the BJP’s relentless ascent. This reshuffle isn’t a reset—it’s a desperate bid to reclaim relevance, with Kejriwal’s fingerprints on every move, daring his party to rise from the ashes or fade into irrelevance.

Gopal Rai’s Exit – The Price of Delhi’s Defeat

Gopal Rai’s ouster as Delhi president is a brutal epitaph for the AAP’s capital collapse. For years, Rai was Kejriwal’s rock—stoic, dependable, a Lucknow-bred sociologist who weathered a bullet in his student days and brought that same grit to the AAP’s Delhi unit.

As convener since 2017, he helmed the party’s organisational overhaul, steering it through triumphant 2015 and 2020 landslides. But 2025 was a different beast. The BJP’s relentless campaign – hammering the AAP with corruption scandals like the liquor policy case and 'Sheesh Mahal' – flipped the script, shrinking the AAP’s vote share from 53.5 percent to 43.57 percent.

Rai, as the Delhi face, bore the brunt. His removal isn’t just a demotion—it’s a scapegoating, a signal that Kejriwal won’t shield those tethered to failure.

Bhardwaj, a three-time MLA with a sharper edge, steps in to rebuild a fortress now under the BJP rule, but Rai’s exile to Gujarat as in-charge – a state the AAP eyes for growth – feels like a banishment dressed as duty. It’s Kejriwal saying, “You lost Delhi; prove yourself elsewhere.”

Saurabh Bhardwaj: AAP’s Middle-Class Gambit in Delhi

When Kejriwal tapped Saurabh Bhardwaj as the AAP’s Delhi incharge, it wasn’t just a reshuffle—it was a calculated jab to reclaim a city that slipped through his fingers.

The BJP’s rout in the Delhi polls wasn’t random; it was a middle-class revolt, a seismic shift of the voters who once hoisted the AAP to power in 2015 and 2020.

Gopal Rai, the ousted Delhi president, was a fiery orator with grassroots grit – a Lucknow-born activist who’d bled for student causes – but his everyman aura couldn’t stem the tide. Kejriwal, ever the strategist, turned to Bhardwaj, a middle-class poster boy, to win back the betrayed.

Bhardwaj’s creds scream suburban sensibility. A computer engineer from Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, he swapped code for law, earning an LLB from Osmania University before diving into AAP’s 2013 uprising.

As a three-time MLA from Greater Kailash – a plush South Delhi enclave of affluent professionals – he’s no stranger to the manicured lawns and metro-commuting elite who ditched AAP over corruption scandals and unkept promises.

His ministerial stints – handling transport, health, and urban development under Kejriwal – polished his image as a technocrat with a pulse on middle-class woes: choked roads, pricey power, and crumbling schools. That pedigree matters when your party’s lost the plot with the salaried class.

Rai rallied the streets, but Kejriwal knows Delhi’s 2025 debacle – vote share plunging from 53.5 percent to 43.57 percent – wasn’t the poor turning away; it was the middle class, furious over 'Sheesh Mahal' and liquor policy stains, swinging to the BJP. Bhardwaj, with his GK roots and bespectacled charm, is the AAP’s bridge back to that betrayed bloc. It’s a gamble on class over charisma; a bid to mirror the voters, the AAP needs to resurrect its Delhi dream—one latte-sipping, EMI-paying soul at a time.

Bhardwaj’s ascent as the AAP’s Delhi chief isn’t just a nod to his middle-class roots—it’s a coronation of a narrative maestro.

Long the party’s silver-tongued spokesperson, Bhardwaj has spun the AAP’s tales with a cunning that Gopal Rai’s steady moderation couldn’t match. Rai, a grassroots titan, kept a low flame—his oath ceremonies famously godless, a quiet atheist in a noisy land.

Bhardwaj? He’s a megaphone, wielding Hindutva with a twist that fits Arvind Kejriwal’s soft saffron playbook like a glove.

Bhardwaj’s no stranger to the spotlight. He’s led Ram Navami processions, bellowing 'Jai Bajrang Bali' to counter the BJP’s 'Jai Shri Ram', a sly jab that cloaks the AAP in Hindu hues without bowing to the Sangh. His masterstroke? Painting the 2020 Shaheen Bagh protests as a BJP-orchestrated sham, dismissing the Muslim women’s grit as puppetry—a move that stunned critics and showcased his knack for flipping scripts. Where Rai built bridges, Bhardwaj burns them, crafting the AAP as a fighter not just for schools but for a voter base flirting with the BJP’s Hindu pitch.

Bhardwaj’s elevation as Delhi unit chief is a test of resilience in a city AAP once owned. He must now lead the AAP as a “constructive opposition” in a BJP-ruled capital, a role demanding he reclaim voter trust amid a hostile Assembly where 21 AAP MLAs faced suspension in March 2025.

Kejriwal’s shadow looms large—Bhardwaj’s every move will reflect his mentor’s playbook, but the question is whether he can forge a new narrative or merely echo a faded past.

Raghav Chadha’s Fall – Punjab’s Polished Star Dimmed

Raghav Chadha’s sidelining from Punjab co-incharge is equally seismic, a fall from grace for the AAP’s golden boy.

The 36-year-old chartered accountant-turned-Rajya Sabha MP was the architect of Punjab’s 2022 landslide – 92 seats, a 42 percent vote share – his telegenic charm and strategic nous making him Kejriwal’s prized lieutenant. But by 2025, Punjab’s shine has dulled.

Farmer unrest over unkept MSP promises, governance critiques under Bhagwant Mann, and a resurgent Congress (seven Lok Sabha seats in 2024 to the AAP’s three) have chipped away at the party's rural stronghold. Chadha’s role as co-incharge, a post he held since 2020 before transitioning to an advisory gig in 2022, tied him to this erosion.

His removal – clarified as a shift from a defunct title, with Sisodia now the sole in charge – stinks of Kejriwal pruning a liability.

Chadha’s eye surgery hiatus in London and a privilege motion tangle in Parliament didn’t help, painting him as distracted when AAP needed fire.

Sisodia’s arrival, with his Delhi-honed grit, is Kejriwal betting on a loyalist to steady Punjab’s wobbling ship. Rajya Sabha MP Chadha became shadow CM of Punjab as he was appointed as chief advisor of CM Bhagwant Mann. It is imperative not that Chadha has been maintaining distance with the party. He was also absent during the protest against Kejriwal's arrest. 

Sisodia-Jain's Punjab Pilgrimage: A Loyalist’s Heavy Crown

Manish Sisodia’s march into Punjab as the AAP’s in-charge isn’t a victory lap—it’s a gauntlet tossed into a furnace. He’s been handed Punjab, the party’s last stronghold after Delhi’s crushing fall. Farmers seethe over unkept MSP vows, and Mann’s government stumbles under governance gripes.

Sisodia, Kejriwal’s right-hand man, strides in with a mission: whip Punjab into line, weaving the AAP’s Delhi-spun gospel of health and education into its fabric. His 17-month jail saga in the liquor policy mess, ending in bail in 2024, paints him as a battered saint, but it’s his unswerving loyalty to Kejriwal that crowns him here.

He’s not just an overseer—he’s Kejriwal’s shadow, tasked with staving off a Punjab unraveling like Delhi did.

Sisodia hit the ground running, touring Punjab’s schools post-Delhi’s 2025 debacle. Punjab whispers a bitter truth: the education revolution that dazzled Delhi never took root here. Kejriwal, stung by middle-class betrayal in Delhi, sees Punjab as a proving ground. Sisodia’s charge? Ignite that same schoolroom magic – think gleaming classrooms, and free books – to woo votes for 2027. It’s no coincidence Satyendar Jain, another Kejriwal stalwart, stays co-incharge.

Jain’s Delhi health triumphs – clinics, hospitals – hint at the AAP’s playbook: plaster Punjab with governance glitter, banking on it to shine electorally.

This isn’t subtle. The AAP’s soul is the Delhi model – slick, urban, promise-driven – and Punjab is now its canvas. Sisodia’s burden isn’t just loyalty; it’s dragging a state of restless tillers into Kejriwal’s vision; the baggage of jail and Delhi’s rejection be damned. Punjab’s skeptics may scoff, but if Sisodia and Jain pull this off, the AAP could rise from Delhi’s ashes. Fail, and it’s a loyalist’s pyre.

Kejriwal’s Iron Grip: AAP’s Reshuffle Screams Control

When the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) reshuffled its deck, it wasn’t a mere tweak—it was Arvind Kejriwal tightening his chokehold on Delhi and Punjab, a maestro refusing to let his orchestra stray. Post the Delhi debacle, the party’s soul was bruised, its invincible sheen shattered.

Yet, from his Civil Lines perch, Kejriwal orchestrated a purge that screams one truth: he’s still the puppeteer, and Delhi and Punjab remain his stage. Saurabh Bhardwaj’s rise as Delhi in-charge and Manish Sisodia’s dispatch to Punjab aren’t just promotions—they’re Kejriwal planting loyalists to wield his will, ensuring AAP bends to his baton.

This reshuffle isn’t renewal—it’s control. The 21 March meeting at Kejriwal’s home wasn’t a debate; it was a decree.

Delhi and Punjab, the AAP’s twin lifelines, now pulse to his rhythm, a shadow too vast to escape. Kejriwal’s not stepping back—he’s doubling down.

(The author, a columnist and research scholar, teaches journalism at St. Xavier’s College (autonomous), Kolkata. His handle on X is @sayantan_gh. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)