Newsmaker | Durgesh Pathak: At 31, an AAP veteran and now Rajinder Nagar MLA

Though Pathak may have come into the limelight only over the past couple of years, his association with the founder-members of the party is older than the party itself. A senior member of the party and its Political Affairs Committee –the highest decision-making body – Pathak is among the AAP’s youth leaders that the leadership has faith in.

His candidature from the Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat, which was vacated by Raghav Chadha when he was elected Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, came as a surprise to many within the AAP as he is considered an outsider in the area that was developed by the government to rehabilitate Punjabi refugees from Pakistan after Partition.

Punjabis constitute around 35 per cent of the population in Rajinder Nagar. The urban villages in the constituency have a mixed population of Jats, Yadavs and Rajputs. Over the years, however, the seat’s Purvanchali numbers have gone up, which is expected to suit Pathak, who is originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur. While Bhatia, a Punjabi, received large support in upscale neighbourhoods in the constituency, Pathak, a Purvanchali, got more support from other areas.

After his Master’s in English from Allahabad University, Pathak moved to Delhi in 2010 to prepare for the civil services exam. Within months, the Capital bore witness to the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, which later led to the formation of AAP. Pathak was among the many youngsters who made the transition from the anti-corruption movement to politics.

Over the years, Pathak worked his way up in the AAP. In 2013, he managed the election campaign for AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, who pulled off a stunning upset, defeating incumbent chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

As Delhi went into elections again almost a year later, Pathak was promoted to the position of Delhi co-convener. The AAP went on to win 67 out of 70 seats that election. Later, ahead of the 2017 assembly polls in Punjab, he was made the co-incharge with Sanjay Singh.

“When he and Sanjay Singh went to Punjab (in 2017), there was no cohesive organisation to speak of. It was a collection of people who were at loggerheads with each other. To begin with, Durgesh focussed on putting that in order. While we didn’t win that election, the roots of the organisation were strengthened,” said a senior leader who did not want to be named.

The Rajinder Nagar bypoll was not Pathak’s first foray into electoral politics. He contested the 2020 polls in Delhi from Karawal Nagar but lost to the BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht, who had represented the area in the 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.

Soon after, Pathak was given the responsibility of managing the party’s campaign for the now-delayed MCD polls. As AAP attempts to make inroads into more states, Pathak, as the party in-charge of Himachal Pradesh, which heads into polls later this year, is expected to play a key role.