Chandigarh, Oct. 31 -- The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will release its first list of candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab on Saturday. Announcing this, chief minister Bhagwant Mann said he would release the first list of candidates after a meeting of the party's political affairs committee (PAC). "We have been declaring our candidates ahead of other parties in the past. We will follow the practice this time as well," he told the media in Delhi after a meeting with AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab affairs in-charge Manish Sisodia. The meeting was held at Kejriwal's residence. AAP state president Aman Arora and cabinet minister Harpal Singh Cheema joined the meeting via video-conference. The CM said the names of candidates were discussed on the basis of "people surveys" by the party and feedback on the performance of MLAs. "We will give tickets to leaders who are liked by people," he said, refusing to specify the number of candidates in the first list. A senior AAP leader said the party leadership may finalise candidates for 15-20 assembly seats in the PAC meeting. The 11-member PAC, the party's highest decision-making body, comprises Kejriwal, Atishi, Sisodia, Mann, Durgesh Pathak, Cheema, Gopal Rai, ND Gupta, Satyendar Jain, PK Gupta and Sanjay Singh. Mann, who was earlier a special invitee, and Cheema were inducted as members in September 2026 in view of the state polls. Arora is now a special invitee. The AAP was the first to name its candidates in the 2017 assembly elections also - its first state elections in Punjab, stealing a march over its opponents. Mann further said that the party leadership had decided to reach out to people through a positive campaign, focusing on electricity, water, schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure and other development-related issues. "We will follow positive politics. All this was discussed in the meeting. We had a good discussion," he said. Asked to comment on the possibility of an alliance between the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, the CM said it would not make any difference. "If you add zero to zero, it will remain zero. Both parties are zero," he said. He alleged that if (Union home minister) Amit Shah and (SAD leader) Bikram Majithia joined hands and shared the stage, what would happen to the BJP's promise of drug-free Punjab. The AAP has 95 MLAs in the 117-member state assembly. There is already speculation within AAP circles that the party leadership may replace around a third of its sitting legislators on the basis of internal surveys. The assembly elections in Punjab, along with Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, are scheduled to be held in February-March next year....