The political battle for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections has started taking shape, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announcing its first list of 40 candidates on Saturday. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has been named as the party's candidate from Dhuri, raising the question of whether he could face jailed MP Amritpal Singh in the upcoming elections.
Mann's candidature from Dhuri is significant because Amritpal Singh, the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Khadoor Sahib, has been linked to discussions around contesting the next Assembly elections, however, there is no official announcement confirming that Amritpal will contest from Dhuri or that the two leaders will face each other.
Amritpal Singh, who is currently lodged in Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act (NSA), won the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Khadoor Sahib as an independent candidate. His political support in the Majha region has made his possible entry into the 2027 Assembly elections a subject of interest, meanwhile, AAP has officially announced Mann as its candidate from Dhuri. The Chief Minister said the party wanted to give candidates sufficient time to reach out to voters and seek support based on the government's performance in education, healthcare, irrigation, rural development and other sectors.
The first list also includes Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan from Kotkapura and jailed minister Sanjeev Arora from Ludhiana West. Arora was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in May 2026 in a money laundering case. He had earlier won the Ludhiana West bypoll.
The party has also named four women candidates in the first list. These include Inderjit Kaur Mann from Nakodar, Dr Amandeep Kaur Arora from Moga, Santosh Kataria from Balachaur and Baljinder Kaur from Talwandi Sabo.
Mann indicated that the party would announce more candidates in the coming lists, with new faces also likely to be included.
Punjab has 117 Assembly seats, and the next elections are due in early 2027. While AAP has confirmed Mann's constituency, Amritpal's electoral plans remain unclear.
For now, a direct electoral contest between Bhagwant Mann and Amritpal Singh remains a possibility being discussed, not a confirmed face-off.