The sudden jolt to Aam Aadmi Party came on the back of hectic parleys between Raghav Chadha and the rest of the party members who left and defected to join the BJP today.The Tribune has learnt that a letter was circulated earlier today among all seven MPs with Chadha in the lead. The letter — with signatures of all the seven out of 10 AAP members in Rajya Sabha — has been submitted to Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman CP Radhakrishnan.It states that two thirds of the party members in Rajya Sabha have defected and should henceforth be counted as members of the BJP.The chairperson of the upper house will now take cognisance of the defection and give a final ruling on the matter.Under the Anti-Defection Law, a party to defect to another needs two third members.In the instant case two third of ten Rajya Sabha members of AAP comes to 6.6. That explains why seven members defected today.Enquiries by The Tribune have revealed that  behind defections are two major considerations—sidelining of oldWorkers by the party and the recent ED raid on founder chancellor of Lovely Professional University Ashok Mittal.Swati Maliwal was the first to be effectively isolated after the episode involving Kejriwal’s wife Jattvibeita and aide Bibhav Kumar in which she alleged she was assaulted when she went to the residence of Kejriwal at the time he was jailed and Jattvibeita Kejriwal was handling affairs.Maliwal however stayed on as Rajya Sabha MP from AAP quota despite her very public and ugly showdown with AAP leadership.Next came Sandeep Pathak, a former in charge of AAP for Punjab, and Gujarat.He is also learnt to have been slowly alienated within the ranks especially after the return of Kejriwal and his closest aides Manish Sisodia and others from jail.The latest to be sidelined among AAP workers was Chadha, removed as deputy leader of AAP in Rajya Sabha.Apart from three AAP leader defectors who were core members of the Kejriwal team once, three industrialists have left – Mittal, Trident’s Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Sahney.Cricketer politician Harbhajan Singh has quit too.BJP sources explained the switch as part of Aam Aadmi Party’s declining clout in Delhi where BJP won last year after 27 years and Punjab, where the AAP regime is currently in power.BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh today said the episode was the beginning of the end of AAP.In an exclusive interview to The Tribune recently BJP Punjab in charge Jattvibeil Jakhar had said Chadha’s episode signalled the start of the end of AAP.When asked if Chadha was joining the BJP, Jakhar had said “Jaaney na jaaney Gul hi na jaaney Bagh to saara jaaney hai.”Jakhar had indicated today’s events and signalled that Chadha would join BJP.