Chandigarh, April 26 -- Jolted by the defection of seven of its 10 Rajya Sabha members, the Aam Aadmi Party's Punjab unit on Saturday began touching base with all its MLAs in the state to gauge the mood of its rank and file and keep its flock together, people familiar with the matter said. With the ruling AAP gearing up for the Punjab assembly polls due early next year, several leaders and sitting MLAs, who spoke to HT on condition of anonymity, stressed the need for better coordination and continuous dialogue between the party's top leadership, its MLAs, MPs and ministers in the state. AAP leaders in Punjab particularly voiced their concern over the exit of Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak, who are widely credited with crafting the party's 2022 Punjab campaign that got the AAP an unprecedented majority: 92 seats in the 117-member assembly. On Friday, Rajya Sabha members Chadha and Pathak, a former IIT Delhi professor, announced that they were "merging" with the BJP along with five other Rajya Sabha members. Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Rajinder Gupta, Vikramjit Sahney (all from Punjab) and Swati Maliwal (Delhi) were the other AAP MPs they named. A senior party leader and a sitting MLA said the bombshell exodus of seven MPs is likely to change the way the top leadership has so far been interacting with its Punjab MLAs. "There will be a lot more interactions, communication and inclusion in decision making. The party has started calling all its MLAs and plans to present a united front," the leader, who didn't wish to be named, said, adding that the party's central leadership approached him on Friday. Party's Anandpur Sahib MP Malvinder Singh Kang also emphasised the need for better coordination and continuous dialogue. "Feedback should be taken from the right persons, and those workers who are working at the ground level should be empowered. Sandeep (Pathak) had told me that he had not been contacted in the past year. Had he been contacted regularly, he would not have left the party," news agency PTI quoted him as saying. Many of the AAP MLAs say they needed more stake in the decision-making process in the state. "A key factor behind this situation is the centralisation of power. Decision-making on tickets, governance priorities and organisational appointments has largely been controlled from Delhi," said one of the leaders quoted above. He acknowledged that while this helped the party scale up quickly, it limited the growth of independent leadership within Punjab. "Many MLAs relied on a few central figures - especially Chadha and Pathak - for access and approvals. With those figures now gone, the system they operated has weakened, leaving the state unit without a clear chain of authority," another party leader said, adding there is no doubt chief minister Bhagwant Mann remained the party's unquestioned mass leader and communicator in the state. The leader also sounded a note of caution ahead of next year's polls, saying any further defections could hijack the development narrative the party is trying to build in Punjab, the only state where it remains in power after losing Delhi last year. "While defections are unlikely to threaten the stability of the AAP government, many could shift loyalties if power is not shared," the AAP leader added....