Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party lost three of its Punjab legislators to the BJP in a single afternoon in Delhi on Monday, and by evening one of the three was still technically an MLA.
Chetan Singh Jouramajra, a former cabinet minister elected from Samana, Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra of Sanaur and Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a former IPS officer who won Amritsar North, were inducted at the BJP's national headquarters in the presence of Punjab affairs in-charge Satish Poonia, co-in-charge Virendra Sachdeva and state president Kewal Singh Dhillon.
The moves came days after the AAP published its first list of 40 candidates for the assembly election due in early 2027. Pathanmajra and Jouramajra resigned from the party's primary membership on Sunday. Kunwar Vijay, suspended by the AAP in June 2025, sent his resignation as a legislator on Monday morning.
Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan accepted the resignations of Kunwar Vijay and Pathanmajra and declared the Amritsar North and Sanaur seats vacant from Monday. Jouramajra has resigned only from the party. AAP chief whip Baljinder Kaur wrote to the Speaker seeking his disqualification, and the Vidhan Sabha secretariat has asked him to appear on November 5; officials said ex parte proceedings can begin if he does not.
All three framed the switch around the state's condition rather than their own. "Crime, drugs, corruption and gangsterism are rampant in Punjab. Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal have completely uprooted and destroyed AAP, which was born from a revolutionary mindset," Kunwar Vijay said. Earlier in the day he had said drug abuse had reached alarming levels and "extortion has now become an industry".
Dhillon called the AAP a "sinking boat". Punjab Congress president Pargat Singh had his own line, calling it a "sinking ship".
The BJP has been building for this election without much to show for it so far: in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls it took its highest-ever vote share in Punjab, above 18 per cent, and still won no seat. The Congress remains the principal opposition in the state.