Party switch and 1 Million followers gone: How Gen Z responded to Raghav Chadha's move to BJP

Within 24 hours of Chadha announcing his departure from the Aam Aadmi Party and joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, his Instagram following dropped by nearly one million. On Friday, the 37-year-old Rajya Sabha MP had 14.6 million followers. By 1 pm on Saturday, that figure had fallen to 13.5 million. In the world of digital politics, few signals are quite as unambiguous.

Politicians in India have long measured their standing in votes. For Raghav Chadha, who built his reputation as much on Instagram reels as on Rajya Sabha speeches, the verdict on his switch from AAP to BJP came faster and more bluntly than any election result, and it arrived in the form of an unfollow button. Within 24 hours of Chadha announcing his departure from the Aam Aadmi Party and joining the Bharatiya Janata Party, his Instagram following dropped by nearly one million. On Friday, the 37-year-old Rajya Sabha MP had 14.6 million followers. By 1 pm on Saturday, that figure had fallen to 13.5 million. In the world of digital politics, few signals are quite as unambiguous.

The switch that started it all

Chadha's move to the BJP had been widely anticipated after he was quietly stripped of his position as AAP's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha weeks earlier. When the break finally came, he did not go alone; he brought six AAP Rajya Sabha MPs with him, leaving Arvind Kejriwal's party scrambling to hold its ranks together.

The political realignment may have been expected in Delhi's power corridors. Among Chadha's young online following, however, it landed very differently.

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A politician who had made youth his identity

To understand the scale of the backlash, it helps to understand what Chadha had built. Over the years, he carved out a distinct space in Indian politics by consistently raising issues that most seasoned politicians consider too small or too unglamorous to bother with.

In the Rajya Sabha, he spoke about paternity leave, the daily data limits imposed by telecom companies, the traffic crisis in Indian cities, overpriced samosas at airports, and the exploitation of gig workers through aggressive 10-minute delivery models. He even spent a day working as a Blinkit delivery partner to experience firsthand what those workers go through. That effort was not lost on people, and it eventually contributed to the Centre mandating delivery companies to scrap the mandatory 10-minute deadline.

These were not the concerns of career politicians. They were the concerns of a generation, and Chadha spoke to them fluently. His ability to bridge the gap between formal political discourse and the everyday frustrations of young Indians had made him something of a rare commodity, a politician that Gen Z actually paid attention to.

The warnings were already there

Interestingly, the possibility of this backlash had been flagged before the switch even happened. When Chadha was removed as AAP's deputy leader, an Instagram user called Rihan posted a reel suggesting that Chadha should consider forming a "Gen Z party" of his own. Chadha shared the post himself, calling it an "interesting thought", a comment that sparked widespread speculation he might strike out independently.

Rihan had also warned, with some foresight, that if Chadha chose to join another established party instead, he risked being met with hostility. Chadha chose the BJP. The hostility followed almost immediately.

The unfollow campaign takes hold

NCP (SP) spokesperson Anish Gawande was among the first to put a number to what was happening. "A viral Gen Z unfollow campaign on Instagram has led to Raghav Chadha's followers dropping by 10 lakh in 24 hours," he wrote on social media, adding, "The internet can make you a hero overnight. The internet can also bring you down to zero overnight."

According to an India Today report, political commentator Diksha Kandpal pointed to the comment sections on Chadha's older posts as evidence of the mood. "Go to Raghav Chadha's first post on Instagram, see how many unfollow comments are there. I can see a lot of young people asking to unfollow," she wrote.

Among those who unfollowed was mountaineer Rohtash Khileri, who recently made headlines as the first person in the world to spend 24 hours on Europe's Mount Elbrus without oxygen support. A hashtag, #unfollowRaghavChadha, has been gaining momentum steadily.

Whether Chadha, who has always prided himself on being data-driven, can read this particular data and find a way back into the good graces of the generation he once championed remains to be seen. For now, the numbers are telling their own story.