The latent but evident tension between Raghav Chadha and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to a head on Thursday with the party removing him as its deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha.

Chadha, 37, has been replaced with Ashok Mittal, founder and chancellor of Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, who downplayed dissent as the reason behind the switch and framed the change as part of a democratic process wherein the party assigns responsibilities to leaders.

AAP today communicated the replacement of Chadha to the Rajya Sabha secretariat in a letter which also mentions non-allotment of party quota time to him in the House. Mittal, however, said earlier ND Gupta was deputy leader, then Chadha and now him and that this was all routine. “Our party wants all MPs to learn,” Mittal said.