Shocking... but not surprising: The tale of a rebellion foretold

NEw new delhi: The surmount of the Aam Aadmi company (AAP) exits— 7 members of Parliament at i go, with at least three joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) —may have taken everyone by surprise on Friday, but it was a chronicle of defections foretold.The story, people familiar with the matter say, began in 2024 with two developments: preparations for the Delhi elections kicked off, and some AAP leaders were not happy with how their government in Punjab was functioning. All seven Rajya Sabha members from Punjab are from the AAP. Six of them were among the seven who quit the party on Friday. Punjab, which has an AAP government, goes to polls in early 2027.One of them is Sandeep Pathak, the IIT academic who initially served as an in-house election strategist for the AAP. Pathak played a key role during the Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat elections, crunching data to decide which candidates made the list. However, all this changed by the time the Delhi elections came around. While professionals such as Pathak used to give their inputs directly to party chief Arvind Kejriwal earlier, suddenly it was the latter’s aides who were making key decisions. “Slowly and steadily, all my responsibilities were taken away from me,” Pathak is reported to have confided in someone, going so far as to claim that the loss in the Delhi elections was because of the new set of advisers Kejriwal was relying on.Pathak didn’t respond to HT’s specific queries on this. However, addressing a press conference, he described his exit as “not personal”.The disenchantment extended into the functioning of the parliamentary party led by Sanjay Singh, an AAP Rajya Sabha MP. Long before Raghav Chadha went public with his complaints about not being allowed to speak in the Upper House, the group of 10 in the Rajya Sabha functioned as stand alone agents (apart from the seven in Punjab, AAP also had three MPs in the upper house from Delhi; one of these quit Friday).According to at least three of the seven MPs who resigned on Friday, they received no directions from the party about what issues to raise or what strategies to adopt inside Parliament.“I just speak and raise whatever I want to, no one tells me,’’ said Harbhajan Singh when asked about this during the budget session. The fact that the party’s choice for Chaddha’s replacement as deputy leader in RS, Ashok Mittal, also joined the BJP on Friday, highlights how Kejriwal miscalculated the extent of the drift in his party.“So many people from AAP keep contacting us too,’’ said Punjab Congress MP Amar Singh. “ People want to leave it. AAP won’t be able to find candidates in the state.”The fact that the seven MPs were looking for alternatives to the AAP is also corroborated by an Akali Dal functionary, who said that one of the seven met Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal recently. “Most of these people are those that are in Rajya Sabha because they can fund an election,’’ he said. “And if you are in a party because of your money power, then you will go with whoever has influence.”While the BJP is showcasing the defections as an instance of the appeal it has, insiders in the AAP point out that this was more about the younger party’s organisational problems. For instance, six of its councillors in Chandigarh recently quit to join the Congress.Happenings in Punjab seem to have tipped the balance. Two of the MPs who quit, said on the condition of anonymity that Chadha and others led a large group of Punjab lawmakers to meet Kejriwal sometime in 2024.“They had come to Delhi and camped here, and told Kejriwal that the Punjab government wasn’t being run properly,’’ said one. At the time, Sanjay Singh had dismissed these as being part of the Punjab Opposition’s propaganda. However, soon after, Chadha began to lose his former influence within the party. First, he lost his allotted quarters in Punjab, then his security cover, and finally, his office in Punjab Bhavan in Delhi.Kejriwal put his weight behind Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s leadership in the state.HT learnt that the BJP’s decision to provide a home for these disgruntled MPs was taken when Union home minister Amit Shah visited Punjab and held a rally in Moga last month. But whether this move will really help the party in Punjab is debatable, said political leaders.“The thing about Punjab voters is that they are a different lot. They don’t like “gaddars” (traitors). I have a feeling that this may end up helping AAP,’’ said a Congress MP from the state.He pointed out that none of the seven really had a voter base which the BJP could draw upon. However, there are two immediate advantages that the BJP is counting on. One, its numbers are boosted in Parliament. And two, the defections may buoy the party’s image ahead of the crucial second phase of elections in West Bengal.There’s also the likely medium-term benefit of Chadha and the others being able to get some of AAP’s legislators in Punjab to defect. Still, a BJP minister accepted that to do well in Punjab, they will have to do much more. “Does it mean that they (the defectors) will help us win Punjab? No, I think we will have to work hard there,’’ he said.Apart from external issues, the party will also have to address internal ones. The current BJP Punjab chief Sunil Jakhar resigned from his post in 2024, only to be cajoled into staying. Veteran leader Captain Amarinder Singh has spoken of how the BJP’s functioning is tough for people like him. The party now has to deal with a new set of turncoats whom it has to accommodate. But the BJP has always enjoyed solving problems of plenty.