The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced its first list of 40 candidates for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, firing the starting gun on its campaign to retain power in the state. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will seek re-election from Dhuri, the constituency he has represented, heading a list that mixes senior ministers, sitting legislators, the Assembly Speaker and a minister who is currently in jail.
The announcement, dated October 31, 2026, was made after a meeting of the party's Political Affairs Committee and covers constituencies across the Malwa, Majha and Doaba regions of the state.
Mann himself confirmed his candidature after the meeting, telling reporters that his name was on the list and that he would contest from Dhuri. The list was issued by AAP national secretary Pankaj Kr Gupta and published by the party on its official channels. It is the first candidate list released by any major party for the Punjab elections, which are due in early 2027, with polling expected around February and March.
The five-year term of the 117-member Punjab Assembly ends on March 16, 2027, and the Election Commission is yet to announce the polling schedule.
Alongside Mann, the list includes Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, who will contest from Kotkapura, and several state ministers. Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has been named from Ajnala, Bram Shanker Sharma Jimpa from Hoshiarpur, and Balkar Singh from Kartarpur. Other ministers on the list include Jai Krishan Singh Rouri from Garhshankar, Kulwant Singh from SAS Nagar, and Labh Singh Ugoke from Bhadaur.
The inclusion of so many sitting ministers signals that the party intends to fight the election on its record in government rather than on fresh faces alone.
One of the most talked-about names on the list is Sanjeev Arora, a minister who will contest from Ludhiana West despite currently being in jail. Parties in India have, on occasion, fielded candidates facing legal proceedings, and the decision is likely to draw scrutiny from opponents, who will question the message it sends about accountability.
AAP, however, has presented the list as a whole as a statement of confidence in its sitting team, and Arora's candidature will be defended by the party as a political choice for voters in Ludhiana West to judge.
Other prominent nominees include Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar from Amritsar South, Amansher Singh, also known as Shery Kalsi, from Batala, Harmeet Singh Sandhu from Tarn Taran, and Inderjit Kaur Mann from Nakodar. Amandeep Kaur Arora has been named from Moga, Sarvan Singh Dhun from Khem Karan, Karambir Singh Ghuman from Dasuya, and Jasvir Singh Raja Gill from Urmar. Daljit Singh Grewal, known as Bhola, will contest from Ludhiana East, and Ashok Prashar Pappi from Ludhiana Central.
Ajitpal Singh Kohli, the final name on the list, will contest from Patiala, while Manwinder Singh Giaspura has been named from Payal.
The candidates were finalised at a Political Affairs Committee meeting convened at the residence of AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. The meeting was attended by Kejriwal, Mann, Punjab in-charge Manish Sisodia, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema and other committee members. The choice of venue and the presence of the party's top leadership underline how central Punjab is to AAP's national standing.
Punjab is one of only two states where the party is in government, and retaining it in 2027 is essential to its claim to be a national alternative rather than a Delhi-centred party.
AAP currently holds 95 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly, a commanding position won in the 2022 elections when it secured 92 seats, while the Congress won 18. That landslide gave the party an unusually strong mandate, but it also raised expectations.
Over the past four years, the Mann government has promoted its work on schools, health clinics, free electricity and anti-corruption measures, while facing criticism on issues including law and order, the state's finances and the drug problem that has long afflicted Punjab. The 2027 campaign will, in effect, be a referendum on that record.
The early announcement of candidates gives AAP's nominees months to campaign in their constituencies before polling, a significant organisational advantage. Candidates can begin door-to-door outreach, hold local meetings and address constituency-level grievances well before rivals have even finalised their own lists.
It also allows the party to manage internal dissent early: aspirants who have been left out of the first list still have time to be accommodated in later lists, or to be persuaded to wait, whereas a last-minute announcement would leave little room for negotiation.
The timing also coincides with the Election Commission beginning its own preparations. Earlier in the week, a delegation of the Election Commission conducted a district-wise review of poll preparedness for the 2027 Punjab elections. Such reviews typically cover the state of electoral rolls, the availability of polling stations, security arrangements and the readiness of election machinery.
The Commission has not yet announced dates, but the combination of the poll body's groundwork and AAP's early list suggests that the election calendar is beginning to take shape in earnest.
For the opposition, the list sets the terms of the contest. The Congress, which governed Punjab before 2022, will seek to rebuild after its heavy defeat, while the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party will each try to present themselves as the credible alternative to AAP.
The BJP, which has historically been a junior partner in Punjab, and the Akali Dal, which dominated the state's politics for decades alongside the Congress, both face the challenge of finding a message that cuts through AAP's incumbency. The early list gives them a target: they can now campaign constituency by constituency against named AAP candidates rather than against the party in the abstract.
Within AAP, the list also reflects a balance between continuity and the need to refresh. By retaining most of its senior leadership and many sitting legislators, the party is betting that voters will reward familiarity and a record of governance.
The risk of that strategy is anti-incumbency: after five years in power, any government accumulates grievances, from unfulfilled promises to local disputes, and opposition parties will seek to turn each constituency contest into a verdict on the local legislator's performance. AAP's answer, judging by the composition of the list, is to lean into its leadership, with Mann at the front, and to argue that its government deserves a second term.
Dhuri itself is a significant choice for Mann. He has represented the constituency and built a personal base there, and contesting from the same seat allows him to campaign as a local representative as well as a chief minister. In Punjab's personality-driven politics, a chief minister's own constituency contest is always watched closely: a comfortable win reinforces authority, while even a narrow victory can be read as a warning.
Mann's decision to stay in Dhuri, rather than move to a supposedly safer seat, is itself a statement of confidence.
As the campaign gathers pace, the remaining 77 seats will be the next focus. AAP has announced 40 of 117, leaving more than two-thirds of its slate still to be revealed. Those later lists will show whether the party promotes new faces, accommodates allies or defectors, and how it handles constituencies where sitting legislators are unpopular.
For now, though, the first list has done what an early list is meant to do: it has put AAP on the campaign trail first, given its candidates a head start, and forced its rivals to respond to a contest that, in Punjab at least, has already begun.
(Reporting based on The Indian Express, NDTV and The Times of India.)