Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)

What it is: The Aam Aadmi Party was founded on 26 November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and others. It formed a minority government in Delhi on 28 December 2013 with Congress support, won 67 of 70 seats in 2015 and 62 in 2020, and lost Delhi in February 2025, when it won 22 seats and the BJP won 48. Kejriwal was arrested on 21 March 2024 over alleged corruption in liquor licensing, and Atishi became Delhi’s Chief Minister in September 2024 (Wikipedia).

1984 and the Sikh question from Delhi: In January 2014 Kejriwal, then Delhi’s Chief Minister, called for a Special Investigation Team into the 1984 killings, as AAP’s manifesto had promised. On 21 December 2018 the Delhi Assembly passed a resolution moved by AAP MLA Jarnail Singh that called the 1984 violence “genocide” and asked the Home Ministry to put genocide and crimes against humanity into domestic criminal law. AAP MLA Somnath Bharti proposed adding a demand to withdraw Rajiv Gandhi’s Bharat Ratna, but he later said the amendment was never put to a vote. Congress called AAP the BJP’s “B-Team”.

In Punjab: AAP won 92 of 117 seats in 2022, and its legislators chose Bhagwant Mann as their leader; the government was due to take oath on 16 March 2022 at Khatkar Kalan, Bhagat Singh’s village. In 2024 it won 3 of the state’s 13 Lok Sabha seats. Punjab Police, under its government, ran the March 2023 manhunt for Amritpal Singh and the detentions that followed.

Key moments

• 13 April 2026: the Punjab Vidhan Sabha passed the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act, 2026, on sacrilege and the custody of saroops. The Tribune says it came into force after notification on 20 April. The Akal Takht said it had been made without consulting central Sikh institutions.
• 15 June 2026: the Akal Takht declared Mann “Guru dokhi” and “Khalsa Panth virodhi” over the Act and a video said to show him sprinkling liquor on a picture of the Gurus. Mann told the Akal Takht in January that the video was fake and AI-generated, and AAP’s Baltej Pannu questioned the forensic reports.
• 29 June 2026: 87 MLAs, among them 69 from AAP, appeared at the Akal Takht Secretariat and agreed to the jathedar’s direction to amend the Act.
• 29 July 2026: the government’s 24-page reply declined to remove the word “custodian”, and the Akal Takht called it unsatisfactory.
• 16 September 2026: the government formed a seven-member committee to talk with the Akal Takht’s panel. On 16 October AAP MLAs appeared at the Akal Takht Secretariat. Its statement, reported by PTI, said they admitted their mistake: they had not contradicted MLA Manwinder Singh Giaspura’s claim to the media on 12 October that he was kept out on grounds of caste, a claim the Secretariat had rejected.

Where it stands: AAP governs Punjab, with an Assembly election due in 2027, and is out of power in Delhi. Its government is still negotiating the Satkar Act’s wording with the Akal Takht’s panel and the SGPC.