Three Punjab Aam Aadmi Party MLAs joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi on Monday, giving the BJP a significant organisational boost in the state while triggering immediate legislative consequences for two Assembly constituencies and an anti-defection hearing for the third legislator.
Chetan Singh Jouramajra, who was elected from Samana and previously served as a cabinet minister, former IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh of Amritsar North, and Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra of Sanaur joined the BJP at a ceremony attended by senior party leaders. The three leaders criticised the Punjab government over law and order, drug abuse, education and development, and said the BJP could pull the state out of its current difficulties.
Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan has accepted the resignations of Pathanmajra and Kunwar Vijay and declared their seats vacant from Monday, according to the report. Jouramajra has not resigned from the Assembly. He has instead been summoned for a hearing on November 5 after AAP chief whip Baljinder Kaur sought action against him under the anti-defection law.
The developments create an immediate distinction between the three cases. Two constituencies are now without sitting MLAs, while the status of the Samana seat will depend on the proceedings initiated against Jouramajra and any subsequent decision under the applicable legislative and anti-defection provisions.
The BJP has been expanding its presence in Punjab after securing more than 18% of the vote in the Lok Sabha elections without winning a seat in the state, the report said. The party has combined the induction of leaders from other parties with a ground campaign focused particularly on drug abuse and governance. The latest moves came shortly after the AAP announced its first list of 40 candidates on Saturday.
Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon described the departures as evidence that the AAP was a “sinking ship” while defending the BJP’s decision to induct leaders from other parties. He said the AAP had also brought in leaders from other political organisations, including Surjit Singh Rakhra, Pawan Kumar Tinu, Raj Kumar Chabbewal, Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon, Harmeet Singh Sandhu, Mohinder Bhagat and Gurpreet Singh GP.
BJP Punjab affairs in charge Satish Poonia said the party would campaign against what it called the “three Cs” — chitta, corruption and crime — and set a target of making Punjab drug-free by December 31, 2029. The statement places the defections within a wider BJP campaign on public safety and governance, although the report does not provide details of a separate implementation plan for the target.
Kunwar Vijay, a 1998-batch IPS officer who later took premature retirement before joining the AAP ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, was previously associated with the Special Investigation Team probing the Kotkapura police firing case. The Punjab and Haryana high court quashed that SIT report in April 2021, citing concerns about its fairness, impartiality and methodology, and ordered the constitution of a fresh team excluding him. The AAP suspended Kunwar Vijay in June 2025 after he repeatedly questioned the government’s handling of sacrilege cases and investigations and criticised its response to Vigilance Bureau action against Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia.
Pathanmajra, who faces a rape case, said he had been in contact with BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh and other leaders for several days before joining the party. He alleged that the AAP had sidelined leaders who raised Punjab-related issues. Jouramajra questioned the government’s claims about Aam Aadmi Clinics and alleged that about 3,000 rural dispensaries had been shut and replaced by 881 clinics. These claims were made by the former MLAs and were not independently established in the supplied report.
The next immediate institutional milestone is the November 5 hearing involving Jouramajra. The vacancies created by the accepted resignations and the outcome of the anti-defection proceedings will determine the next formal steps concerning representation in the Punjab Assembly.
