Three Rebel AAP MLAs Join BJP in Delhi, Handing Punjab's Ruling Party Its First Poll-Season Defections

Punjab's ruling Aam Aadmi Party lost three legislators to the BJP on Monday. Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra (Sanaur), Chetan Singh Jouramajra (Samana) and Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh (Amritsar North) formally joined the BJP at its national headquarters in New Delhi. These are the first defections of the 2027 Punjab Assembly election season, and they came just two days after AAP named its first 40 candidates.

Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon and the party's state in-charge Satish Poonia attended the induction. BJP sources indicated the three are likely to be fielded from their current seats, though the party has not announced candidates.

Not a sudden break

None of the three was a loyal AAP member until Monday. All had already fallen out with the party.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a former IPS officer who won Amritsar North in 2022, was suspended by AAP in June 2025 and has been a critic of the party since then. On Monday he announced on social media that he was resigning from the Assembly. In his message to Amritsar voters, he named drugs, extortion, gangsterism and corruption as Punjab's most urgent problems, said the state needed to move beyond ribbon-cutting politics, and described his new focus as putting Punjab first.

Pathanmajra and Jouramajra had been suspended over alleged anti-party activities and then resigned from AAP. The party has asked the Assembly Speaker to disqualify both of them.

The Tribune reported that the BJP's national secretary Sandeep Pathak, who knows many of the AAP legislators elected in 2022, played a central role in bringing the three over.

Why the timing matters

AAP won 92 of Punjab's 117 seats in 2022, one of the biggest mandates in the state's history. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's first list of 40 candidates, released on Saturday, included several sitting MLAs, with Mann himself contesting from Dhuri. The BJP is betting that more AAP legislators who are left off later lists, or who feel sidelined, will be willing to switch.

For the BJP, three MLAs do not change the arithmetic in the Assembly. But the party won only two seats in Punjab in 2022 and has struggled to build a base of its own since ending its alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal. Recruiting sitting legislators who have their own local support is the quickest way to field credible candidates in seats where it has little presence.

The disqualification question

AAP's request to disqualify Pathanmajra and Jouramajra relies on the anti-defection provisions of the Tenth Schedule, under which a legislator who voluntarily gives up party membership can lose their seat. With the Assembly's term ending in early 2027, a ruling may not come before the election, and even if it does, it would mostly be symbolic. Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh's resignation removes the question for him.

The bigger risk for AAP is whether this becomes a trend. Every candidate list it releases between now and polling day will leave some sitting MLAs unhappy, and the BJP has now shown it is ready to take them in. The Election Commission has not yet announced the polling schedule for Punjab.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.