Aam Aadmi Party is feeling threatened more from the quiet and reticent Sandeep Pathak than the suave Raghav Chadha.
This is because Chadha brings only glamour to the BJP table, but it is Pathak who brings AAP’s entire organisational strategy with him.
Chadha’s claims that he has the support of a chunk of 63 MLAs have not alarmed the party, as the party’s top brass says there are little chances of such large-scale defection. In fact, his claims will only help the MLAs gain a freer hand in managing the affairs of their own constituencies.
Many of the constituencies have two other power centers, besides the MLAs, the halqa Incharges in constituencies and a key member of the AAP organisation from the central party leadership. MLAs, though not on the party platform, but only privately, have been resentful of this “excessive control and pressure”.
As AAP makes a desperate bid to keep the flock together, these MLAs may finally get some freedom. Also, to stop defection, the party leadership might alter its original plans for a large replacement of its sitting MLAs.
But for the BJP, Pathak is the “more precious” import from AAP, considering that Punjab is all set to go to polls. It was Pathak who had built the party organization from scratch before the 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls.
He knows how the organisation had been built, the pillars on which it stands and he would now be used to shake the foundation he built and use the blocks for BJP’s poll campaign in the upcoming Vidhan Sabha polls.