Three Punjab AAP MLAs Join BJP as Party Seeks Disqualification

Updated 20:00 UTC, November 2

All three departing legislators formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Monday, November 2, ANI and IANS reported. Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh of Amritsar North, Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra of Sanaur and Chetan Singh Jouramajra of Samana were inducted the same day. Singh's resignation as an MLA, sent to Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, takes effect from November 1.

AAP moved the same morning to keep the other two seats in play. IANS reported the party was preparing to approach Speaker Sandhwan to seek the disqualification of Pathanmajra and Jouramajra, with the party maintaining that both had already been suspended for anti-party activities before they resigned from primary membership on November 1. Resigning from a party does not by itself end an Assembly membership, and the Speaker's decision under the anti-defection law will decide the two seats. AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj dismissed the three departing legislators as leftovers, the Daily Jagran reported after the Delhi joining.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, the Aam Aadmi Party MLA for Amritsar North, resigned from the Punjab Legislative Assembly on Monday, becoming the third AAP legislator to quit within two days. Singh sent his resignation to Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, the IANS news agency reported. His exit follows the resignations on Sunday of Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, the MLA for Sanaur, and Chetan Singh Jouramajra, the MLA for Samana, who both left the party and the Assembly a day earlier.

A long fallout with the party

Singh is a former Indian Police Service officer. He joined AAP in 2021 and won Amritsar North in the 2022 assembly elections. His relationship with the party leadership broke down last year. In June 2025, AAP suspended him for five years for alleged anti-party activities, after he opposed the arrest of Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a disproportionate assets case. ANI reporting put the suspension date at June 29, 2025. A suspended member resigning his seat closes a chapter that had been running for more than a year.

On Sunday, a day before he resigned, Singh publicly criticised AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, saying the party had strayed from its founding ideals. In a post on X addressed to the people of Punjab, PLACEHOLDER-NOMATCH to you until my last breath for the love and respect you have shown me". The criticism named the two men who run the party between them: Kejriwal leads AAP at the national level, and Mann heads its government in Punjab.

The wider picture

The three resignations land as Punjab moves toward the 2027 assembly elections. AAP has announced its first list of 40 candidates for that contest. The party won a commanding majority in 2022, taking 92 of the 117 seats in the assembly, while Congress won 18. Three departures in 48 hours do not threaten that majority. They do sharpen the questions about dissent inside the ruling party, a little more than a year before voters in Punjab go back to the polls. Once the Speaker accepts a resignation, the seat falls vacant. Singh won his own seat in the 2022 result that brought AAP to power in Punjab, so his departure is a loss from inside the party's winning class.