A 2024 story, Amit Shah's Punjab visit: Inside Raghav Chadha and team's switch to BJP

THe spectacular leave of 7 Aam Aadmi company (AAP) MPs may feature unfolded in a single day, but the groundwork, it appears, was laid weeks earlier.What seemed sudden on Friday is now being seen, as per HT inputs, as part of a longer political build-up that traces back to Punjab — and crucially, to a visit by Union home minister Amit Shah.HT has learnt that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to accommodate disgruntled AAP MPs was taken around the time Amit Shah visited Punjab for a rally in Moga on March 14. The so-called Badlav Rally is now being viewed as a key moment in the sequence that led to the defections.AAP’s internal churn before exitsAccording to people familiar with the matter, the roots of the current crisis can be traced back to 2024, when two parallel developments began to shape the situation — preparations for the Delhi elections gathered pace, and discontent started brewing among some AAP leaders over the functioning of the party’s Punjab government. However, the cracks became evident earlier this month, when on April 2, the party moved to remove Raghav Chadha as its deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, citing his inability to raise key issues and accusing him of focusing on “soft issues.” Ashok Mittal was brought in as a partial replacement, but that recalibration did little to steady the situation — with Mittal himself among those who switched sides on Friday.While the BJP formally inducted Chadha along with Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal in the presence of party chief Nitin Nabin, questions remain over whether the move will translate into electoral gains in Punjab.‘Ginger, garlic, cumin… can't become vegetable'Political reactions from the state suggest that the BJP’s strategy may not necessarily pay off. “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.The leader also pointed out that none of the seven MPs carried a strong grassroots base that the BJP could leverage.Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann also mounted a strong counterattack, dismissing the political weight of the defectors.“Ginger, garlic, cumin, fenugreek powder, red chili, black pepper, and coriander—these 7 things together make the vegetable taste great, but on their own, they can't become a ‘vegetable.’”He didn’t stop there. “Let me be clear—none of them is capable of becoming even a village sarpanch on their own merit,” he said earlier during a press conference.“The party is bigger than any individual. These 6-7 people who have left do not comprise Punjab. They were not mass leaders,” Mann added.BJP ‘trying to break’ AAP, says Punjab CMEscalating the attack on the BJP, Mann said, “The BJP’s lack of political ground has pushed it towards such tactics even as visible improvements in schools, hospitals, roads, and employment have unsettled it.”“With no base here, it is trying to break our party using central agencies,” he said.He went on to say that: “The BJP has repeatedly faced rejection in Punjab and has responded with hostility towards both the state and the AAP, attempting to weaken a corruption-free government through intimidation, inducements, and efforts to engineer defections.”Meanwhile, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring called the split “natural,” arguing that the party has “no ideology.”He added that AAP’s foundation was built on “sand and PR stunts,” and said, “The desertion of a high-profile face like Raghav Chadha proves that even the inner circle has lost faith in Kejriwal’s vision.”Meanwhile, AAP leader Sanjay Singh said he would seek disqualification of some MPs, maintaining that they had voluntarily left the party. He also accused the BJP of orchestrating the defections.(With inputs from Sunetra Choudhury)