NEW DELHI: In a major setback to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, three of its MLAs, Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, Chetan Singh Jouramajra and Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday, ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.

The three leaders reached the BJP headquarters in Delhi for the formal induction. A video shared by news agency ANI showed Pathanmajra and Jouramajra raising slogans of 'BJP zindabad' at the party office.

The induction comes after Pathanmajra and Jouramajra resigned from the AAP's primary membership on Sunday, while Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a suspended AAP MLA and former IPS officer, resigned from the Punjab assembly on Monday before joining the BJP.

The three leaders are Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, who represents Amritsar North, Chetan Singh Jouramajra from Samana and Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra from Sanour in Punjab's Patiala district.

The development comes at a crucial time for the AAP, which is preparing for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. The party announced its first list of 40 candidates on Saturday, naming Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann from Dhuri, Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan from Kotkapura and jailed minister Sanjeev Arora from Ludhiana West.

Neither Samana nor Sanour figured in the list.

Why did two AAP MLAs resign?

Pathanmajra and Jouramajra had accused the Bhagwant Mann-led government of failing to address several issues, including the drug menace, rising state debt and governance-related concerns.

Jouramajra, a former Punjab minister, had criticised the government's handling of the drug problem and raised the cases of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota, who was killed in Mansa, and Dalit man Gulzar Singh, who died by suicide in Sangrur.

He also questioned the government's failure to fulfil its promise of providing minimum support price for crops and alleged a shortage of teachers in government schools.

Pathanmajra, meanwhile, accused AAP leaders from Delhi of controlling the Punjab government, claiming that state ministers did not have the authority to approve even a single file independently.

Following their resignations, the AAP said it would approach the Punjab Assembly Speaker seeking cancellation of their legislative membership, alleging that both leaders had engaged in anti-party activities. The party had suspended the two MLAs before they quit.

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh resigns as Punjab MLA

Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a former IPS officer and MLA from Amritsar North, resigned from the Punjab Assembly on Monday before joining the BJP.

He submitted his resignation to Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan and announced the decision in a Facebook post.

"I have resigned from the membership of Punjab Vidhan Sabha," Singh posted.

In his resignation letter to the Speaker, he wrote, "I hereby tender my resignation of my seat in the House with effect from 1.11.2026."

Singh was suspended from the AAP for five years in June 2025 over alleged anti-party activities. His suspension followed his criticism of the Punjab Vigilance Bureau's action against Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who was arrested in a disproportionate assets case.

A former member of the Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT) that probed the 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police-firing incidents, Singh had repeatedly questioned the Mann government's handling of the sacrilege cases.

AAP targets BJP over induction of rebel leaders

The BJP's induction of the three leaders has drawn criticism from the AAP leadership. Punjab AAP president Aman Arora accused the BJP of attempting to induct leaders who had left or been expelled from other parties.

AAP chief spokesperson Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal had also described the BJP as a 'kabaad di dukaan' (scrap shop), accusing it of collecting rejected political faces.

Before resigning, Pathanmajra had said that he would join a party that worked in the interest of Punjab.

Jouramajra served in the Bhagwant Mann cabinet from January 2023 to September 2024 before being dropped during a cabinet reshuffle.