The Cop, the Cause, and the Collapse: Why Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh and AAP Were on a Collision Course
Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh has resigned as MLA and joined the BJP. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator from Amritsar North happens to be the third party MLA to tender his resignation in the past two days after Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra and Chetan Singh Jauramajra (both have joined BJP too). Why and what it means—read on
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, November 2
When former Punjab Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh stepped into the Aam Aadmi Party’s fold in June 2021, inducted in Amritsar with high fanfare by Arvind Kejriwal himself, the narrative seemed ready-made for political disruption.
Kejriwal projected him as the face of uncompromised integrity—the crusading cop who took voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service (IPS) after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed his SIT investigation into the politically incendiary 2015 Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan police firing cases.
Yet, Kunwar Vijay Pratap’s journey inside AAP has reached its inevitable end. For political observers tracking Punjab, his departure is not a sudden tremor; it is the culmination of years of systemic friction, open defiance, and fundamentally incompatible agendas.
1. Who is Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh?
Originally hailing from Bihar’s Gopalganj, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh is a 1998-batch IPS officer of the Punjab cadre. Throughout his policing career, he earned a reputation as a dogged, uncompromising, and headline-friendly officer:
- High-Profile Policing: He spearheaded landmark investigations into organized crime syndicates, drug rings, and illegal lottery networks.
- The Sacrilege & Firing SIT: His defining chapter began when the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government appointed him to lead the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 2015 Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing incidents, where police opened fire on anti-sacrilege demonstrators.
- The High Court Rebuff & Voluntary Retirement: When the High Court in April 2021 quashed the SIT’s chargesheet—alleging political bias and directing the state to reconstitute the SIT without Singh—he tendered his resignation from the IPS in protest, declining government pleas to reconsider.
Within two months, AAP handed him a political vehicle, declaring that his fight for insaf (justice) in the Bargari sacrilege and firing cases would now be spearheaded inside the Vidhan Sabha. In March 2022, he won the Amritsar North constituency with a commanding margin.
2. The Anatomy of the Rift: Why He and AAP Couldn’t Coexist
Kunwar Vijay Pratap was never a conventional party foot-soldier. From day one of the Bhagwant Mann government, the former supercop operated as a de facto one-man opposition from within the treasury benches.
The clash points centered on three specific faultlines:
- The Sacrilege Investigation Handling:
Singh consistently accused his own government’s advocate general office and bureaucracy of dragging their feet on the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura trials. He alleged that influential figures were being shielded behind closed doors. In January 2023, he resigned as chairman of the Vidhan Sabha’s Committee on Government Assurances after Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan scheduled a competing meeting that effectively neutralized Singh’s attempt to grill top bureaucrats over the sacrilege probe.
- The Drug War Critique & the Majithia Row:
When AAP claimed major headway in its anti-narcotics drive, Singh openly questioned the tactical approach. When the state moved aggressively against SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia, Singh publicly criticized the optics, calling it legally weak and questioning whether the government was engaging in vendetta politics without building airtight forensic evidence.
- Disdain for Party Centralization:
Like several other civil servants who transitioned into politics, Singh chafed at strict party whips, central diktats from Delhi, and the centralization of bureaucratic power in Chandigarh. He routinely took to social media, bypassing party forums to air grievances about local law enforcement and governance failures in Amritsar.
The simmering tension reached an administrative breaking point when the party leadership slapped him with a disciplinary suspension for anti-party activities, paving the way for this formal separation. Kunwar Vijay Pratap was suspended by the party in 2025 over alleged anti-party activities. And now comes his resignation as MLA.
3. What His Exit Means for Punjab Politics
Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh’s severance from AAP carries tangible political and symbolic ramifications:
- A Dent in AAP’s Bargari Credibility:
The 2015 sacrilege and police firing incidents were central to the political decimation of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the rise of AAP in 2022. AAP built significant goodwill around Kunwar Vijay Pratap as the guardian of justice for Bargari. His bitter exit reinforces opposition allegations (from Congress and Akali Dal alike) that AAP used the emotive issue purely as an electoral launchpad.
- The “Outsider-Specialist” Friction:
Singh’s departure mirrors a broader challenge AAP has faced across states—integrating lateral entrants, civil servants, and activist icons who possess personal public credibility and refuse to adhere to party line discipline.
- The Majha Equation:
Amritsar and the Majha belt are crucial battlegrounds. As an independent actor with strong name recognition and residual goodwill among urban Hindu and Sikh voters in Amritsar North, Kunwar Vijay Pratap remains an influential free agent ahead of upcoming electoral battles.
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