Can AAP retain power in Punjab in 2027?

In 2022, Gurmeet Singh Khudian of the Aam Aadmi Party beat the Shiromani Akali Dal’s Parkash Singh Badal in Lambi. Khudian took nearly half the vote despite Badal having been chief minister five times.Two years later, Khudian ran for the Lok Sabha from Bathinda, which includes the Lambi Assembly segment. He lost. In the Lambi segment, he got just over a quarter of the vote. Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the SAD, Parkash Singh’s daughter-in-law, got nearly half.Across Punjab, the fall was widespread. India Today's Data Intelligence Unit’s analysis of Election Commission data found that the AAP led in just 33 of the state's 117 Assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In 2022, it had won 92 of those seats. Punjab votes for a new Assembly next year. The current House first met on March 17, 2022. The Constitution gives it five years from that day. So an election is due by March 2027. Punjab's chief electoral officer published a new voter list on October 12, with 2,01,00,727 voters.The alliances are shifting too. On October 22, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the National Democratic Alliance would form Punjab's next government. Reports read this as a sign that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the SAD could join hands again. "I was in Punjab only the day before. The way drug trade has flourished under the Aam Aadmi Party government there, people have decided that there will be an NDA government in the state in 2027," Shah said at an event in New Delhi.AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal answered on X on October 22. Replying to Shah's promise, made in Punjab, to end the drug trade there by 2029, he asked: "Amit Shah ji, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Goa have your own governments. Why is drug abuse not ending there? Is there no deadline there?"In March, Shah had said the BJP would fight Punjab on its own. Neither party has announced an alliance.The 2024 Lok Sabha election was the last time all of Punjab voted. It shows where each party stood two years into the AAP's rule. It also shows how much ground the AAP has to win back.MAJORITY SPLIT FIVE WAYSPunjab has 13 Lok Sabha seats. Each one covers nine Assembly seats. The Election Commission counts the votes in each Assembly seat separately. That makes it possible to compare 2024 with 2022, seat by seat.In 2022, the AAP won 92 seats, the Congress 18, and the SAD three. In 2024, no party led in even a third of the same seats, according to Election Commission data. The Congress led in 37 seats, the AAP in 33, and the BJP in 23.The BJP had won just two seats in 2022; the SAD led in nine. Independents led in 15, all in two Lok Sabha seats. Amritpal Singh led in eight parts of Khadoor Sahib. Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa led in seven Faridkot segments.Of the 92 seats the AAP won in 2022, it still led in 28 in 2024. The Congress led in 25 of the rest, the BJP in 18, independents in 13 and the SAD in eight.WHERE THE VOTE WENTThe AAP's share of the vote fell from more than two in five to just over a quarter. It was 42.3 per cent in 2022 and 26.2 per cent in 2024. The Congress's share rose from 23.2 to 26.4 per cent; the BJP's nearly tripled, from 6.6 to 18.6 per cent; and the SAD's fell from 18.5 to 13.5 per cent.These figures do not show voters moving from one party to another. The two elections had different candidates, and the parties lined up differently.In 2022, the SAD contested 97 seats with the Bahujan Samaj Party as its partner. The BJP fought 73 seats with two partners: Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress and the SAD (Sanyukt). In 2024, each fought all 13 Lok Sabha seats on its own.Part of the BJP's rise came from being on every ballot in 2024. But look at the 73 seats it fought both times. Even there, its share more than doubled. It rose from 10.7 per cent to 22.5 per cent.The AAP and the Congress were both members of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or INDIA in 2024. In Punjab, they fought each other in all 13 seats. AAP leader Sanjay Singh said in July 2025 that the party was no longer part of the bloc.THE SOUTH CARRIED AAP TO POWERThe fall was steepest where the AAP had been strongest.Malwa, the region south of the Sutlej, holds 69 of Punjab's 117 seats. The AAP won 66 of them in 2022. In 2024, it led in just 24. Its share there fell by about 20 percentage points.Majha is the border region around Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Pathankot. There, the AAP went from 16 seats to leading in just two. Three of Amritsar's five city seats had three of the four sharpest drops. In Amritsar West, the AAP's share fell from 58.8 per cent to 21 per cent.Doaba, between the Beas and the Sutlej, held up best. The AAP's share there fell by only about four points. It led in seven of the region's 23 seats. In 2022, it had won 10.The AAP's share rose in 15 constituencies. At least one of the largest gains followed a candidate. In Hoshiarpur, the party fielded Raj Kumar Chabbewal, who left the Congress and his Chabbewal seat to join the AAP in March 2024. The AAP's share in Chabbewal rose from 34.6 per cent to 46.2 per cent. He won the Lok Sabha seat.WHAT 2024 CANNOT TELL USA Lok Sabha vote is not an Assembly vote. Voters were choosing a member of Parliament. The candidates were often different from the ones they will see in 2027. A seat where the AAP trailed in 2024 did not get a new member of the Assembly because of it.The voters have also changed. The Election Commission revised Punjab's voter list in 2026. The counts can’t show how new voters, or those taken off the list, will vote.AND THEN AAP STARTED WINNING AGAINThe 2024 result is not the latest test either. The later ones point the other way. Punjab has held seven Assembly by-elections since the Lok Sabha vote, between July 2024 and November 2025. The AAP won six of them. The Congress won the seventh, in Barnala.In six of the seven seats, AAP did better in the by-election than in 2024. In Jalandhar West, its share jumped from 14.2 to 58.8 per cent. In Gidderbaha, it rose from 17.4 to 52.5 per cent. In Tarn Taran, it rose from 16.8 to 36.4 per cent.A by-election covers one seat. Parties pick candidates just for it, and it does not decide who governs. So, it is a weaker test of the whole state than a general election. But it is a later one. In these seats, the AAP's 2024 numbers did not hold.WHAT COMES NEXTWhether the SAD and the BJP fight together could matter as much as any number from 2024. Add their 2024 shares together, and they come to 32.1 per cent. That is more than the AAP's 26.2 per cent or the Congress's 26.4 per cent. But the sum is no forecast. Votes do not move wholly between allies. And in 2022, the two parties fought separately.In 2022, the AAP built its majority in Malwa, where it won 66 of 69 seats. In 2024, it led in just over a third of them.- Ends