The Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to begin its four-phase ‘Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra’ on September 18 has come at a politically significant time in Punjab, while the BJP has officially presented the campaign as a statewide movement against drugs, the timing and scale of the programme have also brought its larger political strategy in focus ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
The BJP has announced four yatras that will collectively cover all 117 Assembly constituencies between September 18 and September 30 and the first yatra will be flagged off by BJP national president Nitin Nabin from Ekta Sthal in Madhopur, Sujanpur, Pathankot, on September 18.
The four routes will cover different parts of Punjab before the campaign culminates in Jalandhar. Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to address the concluding rally in Jalandhar on September 30.
Amid this political activity, there is also speculation that the BJP may try to induct some AAP MLAs into the party during or around the yatra, however, there is no official confirmation from the BJP regarding any such planned induction and the possibility is being discussed in political circles as the BJP steps up its Punjab campaign and senior national leaders become more active in the state.
The September timing is particularly important because the Aam Aadmi Party government completed four-and-a-half years in office around this period: Bhagwant Mann took oath as Punjab Chief Minister on March 16, 2022, while the 16th Punjab Assembly began its first session on March 17.
The BJP has already seen a major shift involving AAP’s Rajya Sabha MPs, as in April 2026, seven of AAP’s 10 Rajya Sabha members left the party and merged with the BJP, with Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak and Ashok Mittal among those involved. The issue subsequently became a legal and political dispute between the two parties.
There is no rule under the anti-defection law that says an MLA can switch parties after four-and-a-half years without facing a by-election and changing parties does not automatically become safe from disqualification merely because four-and-a-half years of the Assembly’s term have passed.
Under the Tenth Schedule, an MLA can face disqualification for voluntarily giving up membership of their political party or voting against the party whip, subject to the exceptions provided under the law and one major exception is when a merger is supported by at least two-thirds of the members of the party’s legislature party.
Raghav Chadha and Sandeep Pathak were also seen at the BJP office in Chandigarh on September 10, where a meeting chaired by BJP Punjab in-charge Satish Punia was held ahead of the yatra campaign, and the meeting also included Ashok Mittal and at the same time, BJP has been publicly expanding its political activity in Punjab ahead of the 2027 elections.
The party has said it intends to contest all 117 Assembly seats on its own.
This makes the presence of senior BJP leaders during the yatra politically important, besides Nitin Nabin, senior leaders including Union ministers and other national-level leaders are expected to participate at different stages.
The BJP’s central campaign issue, however, is drugs.
Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon has said that the yatras will focus not only on drugs but also on law and order and corruption and the party is presenting the drug problem as an issue affecting families, youth, crime and the wider social fabric of Punjab.
Drugs have remained one of the most politically sensitive issues in Punjab for years: previous governments, including the Congress government under Captain Amarinder Singh, had made tackling the drug problem a major political promise and the AAP government also came to power in 2022 promising strong action against drugs, and the BJP is now using the same issue to target the Mann government.
The scale of the BJP campaign suggests that this is not simply a series of awareness programmes. Four yatras are planned across the state, covering all 117 constituencies and nearly 4,000 kilometres.
The campaign will begin on September 18 and culminate in Jalandhar on September 30, so, while there is no legal four-and-a-half-year window that automatically protects an MLA from disqualification, the timing gives the BJP an opportunity to intensify its political campaign against AAP at a crucial stage of the current Assembly’s term.
With drugs, law and order and corruption at the centre of its messaging, and senior national BJP leaders joining the campaign, the September 18 launch appears designed to put the AAP government directly in the BJP’s political crosshairs ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
