Punjab: Three AAP MLAs join BJP, Kunwar Vijay Pratap quits Assembly seat ahead of 2027 polls

Three Aam Aadmi Party legislators from Punjab joined the BJP in New Delhi on Monday, a setback for the ruling party months before the 2027 Assembly elections.

Amritsar North MLA Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, Samana MLA Chetan Singh Jouramajra and Sanour MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra were inducted at the BJP's national headquarters in the presence of the party's Punjab in-charge Satish Poonia. Singh, a former IPS officer whom AAP suspended for five years in June 2025 over alleged anti-party activities, also announced that he was resigning his Assembly seat.

Jouramajra and Pathanmajra, both first-time MLAs, had quit AAP's primary membership on Sunday. Their exit came a day after AAP released its first list of 40 candidates for the coming polls, on which neither was named. Jouramajra served as a minister from January 2023 to September 2024.

What the defectors said

The three leaders criticised the Bhagwant Mann government over drugs, crime and the state's finances. Singh blamed Arvind Kejriwal and Mann for what he described as the party's decline in Punjab, while Jouramajra claimed that some MLAs who had already been given tickets might also switch. Pathanmajra alleged that AAP leaders in Delhi were controlling the state government.

Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon called AAP a "sinking ship" and said more resignations would follow.

AAP and opposition reaction

Punjab AAP chief Aman Arora said on Sunday that the BJP was taking in leaders AAP had expelled, and argued that this showed the BJP had no base of its own in the state. AAP has not yet named candidates for Samana and Sanour.

Congress MP Manish Tewari criticised the switch as "Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram" politics and called for a tougher anti-defection law. Shiromani Akali Dal leader Daljit Singh Cheema claimed more AAP representatives would leave once the model code of conduct came into force.

Why it matters

AAP won 92 of Punjab's 117 seats in 2022, while the BJP won just two, so the party remains comfortably in power. But the defections give the BJP familiar local faces as it tries to grow in a state where it has traditionally relied on the Akali Dal. They also point to discontent over ticket distribution that AAP will need to manage before the elections early next year.