It will be wrong, in the current political context, to call desertion by seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs to join Bharatiya Janata Party, as an internal matter of the party. The quick descent of the party is directly proportional to its quick ascent following capturing power in Delhi by unseating Mrs Sheila Dikshit-led strong Congress government and later unexpectedly in Punjab.

If the quick rise was surprising, the downward trend, subsequently losing Delhi (AAP’s mainstay and foundation) to a leaderless (Delhi local) BJP and glaringly reflected by the Raghav Chadha-engineered defections, thereby shaking it’s Punjab government, is astonishing though not unexpected. It has serious political connotations for the I.N.D.I.A combine and more so Congress which has been the sufferer at the hands of AAP which has been eating into its support-base to the benefit of the BJP.

Ever since AAP founder and former Delhi chief minister Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his close confidant Mr Manish Sisodia faced corruption allegations in the excise (liquor) scam, Mr Chadha, the Rajya Sabha MP, had become indifferent to the crisis hitting his party. Same was true of his six other fellow Rajya Sabha MPs who are all either celebrities or representing money-bags with not even an iota of connection with ground-politics.

When he should have been hitting the ground to protest against the arrest of both Mr Kejriwal and Mr Sisodia, the former Finance Minister of Delhi, he quietly flew to London with his film-star wife by his side. It created serious doubts about Mr Chadha’s intentions and motives.

Whether Mr Kejriwal was aware that Mr Chadha was quietly working, in tandem with top BJP leaders, to engineer defections in the AAP’s Upper........

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