Sandeep Pathak, once a trusted strategist of Arvind Kejriwal, now holds crucial role in BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday unveiled its new team that will work under Party President Nitin Nabin. The team has several new faces and is a mix of experience and youth. Women have also been given sizeable representation.

Among others, the BJP announced 16 National Secretaries. Sandeep Pathak, who was once known as Arvind Kejriwal's backroom strategist, is one of them.

Pathak was among the seven Rajya Sabha MPs who had quit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and joined the BJP along with Raghav Chadha on 24 April 2026.

Who is Sandeep Pathak?

Dr Sandeep Kumar Pathak is a former Aam Aadmi Party and now Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab since April 2022. Pathak is a former assistant professor of IIT Delhi, and a former research associate at the University of Oxford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Pathak was born in Bataha village in Mungeli, Chhattisgarh, to agriculturist parents. He completed his education up to class 6 in his village and then moved to Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, to his aunt’s house for further studies. He completed his master's in Chhattisgarh and then moved to the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad and the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, for further studies.

Pathak then moved to the University of Cambridge to pursue Ph.D on high-temperature superconducting materials. After that, he pursued post-doctoral research as a research associate at the University of Oxford and MIT.

He joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, as an assistant professor, where his work focused on the fabrication of perovskite-based photovoltaic devices and photo-physical properties.

Pathak left IIT and joined AAP in 2017.

In AAP, Pathak was tasked by the party to carry out surveys in Punjab before the Assembly election that year. Pathak gradually came to be known as Arvind Kejriwal's backroom strategist.

Pathak also worked closely with Prashant Kishor, then a political strategist, to plan the party’s campaign in Delhi for the 2020 assembly elections. AAP won the 2020 assembly election in Delhi.

However, Pathak came into prominence after AAP’s sweep in Punjab in the 2022 assembly elections. He was said to be the brains behind AAP's Punjab strategy.

His nomination to the Rajya Sabha in 2022 from Punjab was viewed as a reward he had earned for his contribution to the party’s electoral success in the state.

Kejriwal's backroom strategist

In December 2022, AAP created the post of National General Secretary (Organisation), and Pathak became the first person to occupy the position. With this, Pathak was actually elevated to the top levels of the AAP hierarchy. Pathak was also a member of AAP’s political affairs committee, the highest decision-making body in the party.

Pathak was among the few people who met Kejriwal when he was in Tihar jail in 2024 after his arrest in the excise policy case. Pathak was, however, later barred from meeting Kejriwal, saying that by holding a press conference in which he shared messages from Kejriwal, he had violated jail rules.

Pathak was among the party’s top leaders who received Kejriwal at his residence after his release on bail from jail on 14 September 2024.

Sidelined after February 2025 Delhi polls?

Pathak is said to have felt sidelined in the party’s scheme of things, more so after AAP’s defeat in the Assembly election in Delhi in February 2025. Once a key strategist, Pathak was now divested of his responsibility as the in-charge of party affairs in Punjab and Gujarat.

Kejriwal’s long-time confidant and former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, was appointed the Punjab in-charge, while Gopal Rai, one of the party’s founding members, was given the charge of Gujarat.

Pathak was handed the charge of his home state Chhattisgarh. This was the begining of his at-odds relationship with AAP and Kejriwal. And 14 months later he joined the BJP.