How Deloitte CA Raghav Chadha became Gen Z's favourite MP

Before he walked the political path through the protest site of Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and then the national capital's state Assembly and Parliament, Raghav Chadha got a chartered accountant's licence at 22. At a very young age, Chadha was in the country's highest tax bracket of 30%. Raghav Chadha and the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) story is about the rise of a foreign-educated CA to a technocrat politician. His support for the students over debt relief also made Chadha Gen Z's favourite MP. His story also has some Bollywood romance sprinkled in the form of his now wife Parineeti Chopra.

The AAP on Thursday wrote to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat seeking the removal of Raghav Chadha from the post of deputy leader of the party in the Upper House.

The party has also requested that the MP should not be allotted speaking time from the party's quota. The AAP has proposed Ashok Mittal as the new Deputy Leader of the Party in the Upper House. It urged the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to formalise the announcement.

Raghav Chadha has been repeatedly viral on the internet for his speeches raising public issues in the Rajya Sabha. As an MP, Chadha has raised several issues, like the ordeal of gig workers, financial reforms, menstrual health, the recharge trick used by telecom companies, and others. For instance, in the ongoing Parliamentary Budget Session, Chadha called for paternity leave to be recognised as a legal right in India, framing it as an issue of shared caregiving.

The proposal came amid the Supreme Court's observations endorsing fathers' equal role in childcare and a renewed push to align India's policies with global standards. Many of his speeches would go on to garner millions of views on social media.

Chadha tied the knot to Bollywood actor Parineeti Chopra in September 2023. The couple held a lavish wedding at The Leela Palace in Udaipur. They are now a family of three after the couple welcomed their first child in 2025.

NEW DELHI-BORN TO A FINANCE PROFESSIONAL IN DELOITTE

Chadha was born to a middle-class family in 1988 and received his schooling in New Delhi. He completed his graduation from the University of Delhi (DU).

Chadha chose to become a professional CA and pursued it from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He achieved this feat at the young age of 22. He, then, worked for the multinational audit consulting firms, Deloitte and Thornton.

Chadha's baby steps into political activism began with his participation in Anna Hazare's India Against Corruption movement in 2011.

FROM ANNA MOVEMENT, HOW RAGHAV CHADHA REACHED RAJYA SABHA

Raghav Chadha actively participated in Anna Hazare's movement against corruption in 2011.

During this time, he worked closely with leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, and Manish Sisodia, who later formed the AAP.

As an activist, Chadha was an active participant in the protests organised by the movement at Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi. It was then that Chadha pivoted from being a finance professional to an activist. Soon he took a plunge into politics.

Chadha has been a member of the AAM AADMI PARTY since the time of its inception in 2012. His first political task was the drafting of the Delhi Lokpal Bill for Arvind Kejriwal. Chadha became the youngest national spokesperson of the AAP and across all parties.

His oratory skills made him immensely popular on television.

After the AAP secured a majority in the 2015 Delhi Assembly election, Chadha was appointed the party’s national treasurer. He was just 26 years old then.

However, in April 2018, his role as an advisor to Delhi minister Manish Sisodia was terminated during the tenure of the then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The Ministry of Home Affairs had then held that the appointments were made without the mandatory prior approval of the central government.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Chadha contested from the South Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. He was routed by the BJP candidate Ramesh Bidhuri in the polls.

Later in 2020, Chadha was appointed as the AAP Punjab co-in-charge for the Assembly election in 2022, where the party gained a landslide victory. It won 92 out of 117 seats in the northern state.

The same year, in 2020, Chadha contested from Rajinder Nagar in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election, and won his first electoral victory against BJP candidate RP Singh by a margin of 20,058 votes. He secured 57.06% of the total vote share.

Following his victory, he was appointed vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

In 2022, Raghav Chadha was sent to the Rajya Sabha by the AAP. The appointment at the age of 33 made him India's youngest Rajya Sabha MP.

He played a major role in AAP's parliamentary affairs.

The AAP designated him as the leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha in 2023, as Sanjay Singh was jailed in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case.

Later in 2024, Sanjay Singh was re-appointed as the leader upon his return to the Upper House after being freed.

It was during his time in the Rajya Sabha that Chadha raised problems faced by students and gig workers. His parliamentary speeches on student's debt went vital and were praised by the Gen-Z on social media. Some even called him the country's best MP for raising the issues faced by the middle-class.

Now in April 2026, amid Chadha's continued silence on key developments involving the AAP and its top leadership, the party recommended his removal from the important post in the Upper House.

In the past, Chadha had faced scrutiny for seemingly keeping distance from party affairs. After Kejriwal was arrested in the liquor scam case, Chadha cited recovery from eye surgery in the UK for his delayed response.

Cut to 2026. Chadha did not publicly react after a Delhi court cleared Arvind Kejriwal, former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in the Delhi excise policy case in February.

On Chadha's removal, while the party maintained that "everyone should get opportunities", it is difficult to ignore the possibility that Gen Z's favourite MP might have fallen out of favour with the AAP high command. Whether Chadha's removal is an internal reshuffle or something else, that could become clearer in the months to come.

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