Who Is Durgesh Pathak, AAP's Rajinder Nagar Candidate For Delhi Elections

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has nominated Durgesh Pathak as its candidate for the Rajinder Nagar constituency in the upcoming Delhi Assembly election. Mr Pathak, the youngest member of the Political Affairs Committee of AAP, is eyeing re-election after he won the 2022 bypolls from the same seat.  

Here are five facts about Durgesh Pathak:

1. Durgesh Pathak was born in Sikohara village near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. He arrived in Delhi in 2010 to prepare for the Civil Services examination. A year later, during Anna Hazare's India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, Mr Pathak joined as a volunteer.  

2. During his initial years as an activist, Durgesh Pathak played an instrumental role alongside Arvind Kejriwal, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan in establishing AAP's foundation in the national capital. In 2013, Mr Pathak managed the election campaign for Kejriwal, who defeated then-chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

3. In 2015, Durgesh Pathak was named Delhi co-convener of the party ahead of the Assembly polls. He was in charge of 35 of the 70 seats in the national capital. The AAP won 34 of them. He was also the co-incharge with Sanjay Singh for the 2017 Assembly election in Punjab.

4. Durgesh Pathak made his electoral debut in the 2020 Assembly elections. He was fielded from the Karawal Nagar seat.  Although AAP retained power in the national capital with a near-repeat of its 2015 performance, Mr Pathak lost to BJP heavyweight Mohan Singh Bisht. In 2022, after Raghav Chadha was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab, his Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat fell vacant. The party announced Durgesh Pathak as the candidate for the by-poll. This time, the young leader defeated BJP's Rajesh Bhatia by over 11,000 votes.

5. In July 2024, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named Durgesh Pathak and four others in the Delhi excise policy case. The central agency claimed that Mr Pathak was the AAP in-charge of the 2022 Goa Assembly election and money received through kickbacks was spent on his instructions. In September 2024, Mr Pathak was granted bail in the case by a Delhi court.