India, April 25 -- The scale of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) exits-seven members of Parliament at one 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 ...