Chandigarh, Nov 2 (PTI) With only months to go before the Punjab Assembly polls, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party is

Chandigarh, Nov 2 (PTI) With only months to go before the Punjab Assembly polls, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party is

Chandigarh, Nov 2 (PTI) With only months to go before the Punjab Assembly polls, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party is

Chandigarh, Nov 2 (PTI) With only months to go before the Punjab Assembly polls, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party is left dealing with defections in three seats. Three AAP leaders joined the BJP in Delhi on Monday.

     The development came days after the AAP released the names of 40 candidates for the 2027 assembly elections.

     Here is a brief profile of the leaders who switched to the BJP:

     MLA from Amritsar North Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh:

     Singh, a former IPS officer, joined the Aam Aadmi Party after taking premature retirement from police service in 2021. He was later elected as MLA from the Amritsar North seat in the 2022 assembly elections.

     As a police officer, Singh was part of the Punjab Police special investigation team, which probed the 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan policing firing incidents.

     He had earlier expressed his displeasure over the AAP government's handling of the 2015 sacrilege and police firing incident cases in Faridkot.

     In June last year, Singh was suspended from the party for five years for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities. Singh's suspension had come after he questioned the Punjab Vigilance Bureau action against SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who was arrested in a disproportionate assets case in June last year.

     Singh remained a vocal critic of the AAP government over many issues.

     On Monday, he said that his resignation to Punjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan has been accepted.

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     Sanaur MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra

     A first-time MLA from Sanaur in Patiala district, Pathanmajra's relations with the AAP leadership deteriorated after he criticised his own government over the handling of floods in his constituency last year.

     He had been at the centre of controversy after a rape case was registered against him last year. The case was registered following a complaint by a Zirakpur-based woman. She alleged that he claimed to be a divorcee, entered into a relationship with her, and later married her in 2021, even though he was already married to someone else.

     He was arrested by the Punjab Police from Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior in March this year, more than six months after he escaped police custody in the rape case.

     In May, the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted regular bail to Pathanmajra in the rape case registered against him in September last year.

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     Samana MLA Chetan Singh Jouramajra:

     Jouramajra, also a first time MLA from Samana, was initially appointed minister in the Bhagwant Mann government. He had held portfolios of health, public relations, defence services and horticulture.

     He was dropped from the cabinet in a reshuffle in 2024.

     Jouramajra had courted controversy when he was the health minister. He came under fire from several quarters, including the opposition after he was seen forcing the then Vice Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Raj Bahadur, to lie on a dirty mattress at a hospital in Faridkot.

     Bahadur had then conveyed to the Punjab CM the "humiliation" he faced and had requested that he is relieved from his services.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)