Two sitting MLAs of Punjab's ruling Aam Aadmi Party resigned from the party on Sunday, November 1, in what IANS described as a major setback for AAP ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra, who represents the Sanour Assembly constituency in Patiala district, sent his resignation letter to AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, announcing his decision to quit with immediate effect. “I hereby submit my resignation from primary membership of Aam Aadmi Party with immediate effect,” he wrote in his letter, IANS reported. IANS reported that both men resigned from the party's primary membership and the Assembly.

Source: IANS via AsiaPost

Chetan Singh Jouramajra, who represents the Samana Assembly constituency and has served as a minister in the Punjab government, announced his resignation through a social media post, IANS reported. India Today, in reporting carried by News89, also reported that both Pathanmajra and Jouramajra had resigned from the party, a day after the party's first candidate list, and said the resignations came amid tensions within the party. Punjabi television channels on Sunday also showed Jouramajra's social media resignation post and Pathanmajra's letter to Kejriwal.

Source: India Today reporting via News89

A day after the first list of 40 candidates

The resignations came a day after AAP released its first list of 40 candidates for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections on Saturday, October 31 — a development Awaaz Punjab reported the same day. That list renominated Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann from Dhuri, Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan from Kotkapura and Minister Sanjeev Arora from Ludhiana West, among 40 sitting MLAs. Neither the Sanour nor the Samana MLA was named in the first-list coverage, and News89's India Today-sourced report framed the resignations as following a ticket snub — that framing is the report's characterisation, not a statement by either MLA in the reports read.

Source: India Today reporting via News89; Awaaz Punjab, October 31

What the reports say about the two departures

For Jouramajra, IANS reported — attributing it to media reports — that tensions had reportedly been building between him and the party leadership after the AAP high command appointed former senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader Surjit Singh Rakhra as the in-charge of the Samana Assembly constituency, a move the report said was viewed as a setback to Jouramajra's standing in his own seat. Rakhra had been the runner-up to Jouramajra in Samana in the 2022 election.

Source: IANS via AsiaPost

Pathanmajra, a first-time MLA, had earlier taken a strong stand against the party leadership after his own government initiated action against him, the India Today-sourced report said. Punjab Police had registered a case against him on September 1, 2025, on allegations of rape, cheating and criminal intimidation — allegations, not a conviction — and IANS reported that he fled from a relative's house in Dabri village in Karnal on September 2, 2025, minutes before a police team arrived, later travelled to Australia, and was arrested after returning to India to join the investigation.

Source: IANS via AsiaPost