India, April 25 -- The dramatic exit of seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs may have 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.

According to people familiar with the matter, the roots of the current crisis can be traced back to 2024,...