Just over two weeks after seven Rajya Sabha MPs switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faced a new crisis on Saturday when central investigating agency, Enforcement Directorate (ED), arrested Punjab Industries and Energy Minister Sanjeev Arora from his official residence in Chandigarh, making him the first sitting minister in the Bhagwant Mann government to be taken into custody.
The arrest came at the end of a day of searches at more than a dozen locations in Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana, targeting Sanjeev Arora’s residence, the offices of Hampton Sky Realty Limited, and the premises of several partners. It is the third raid by the ED on Sanjeev Arora in less than a year – and the second in a month.
What is the case against Sanjeev Arora?
The agency is investigating the alleged case $157 crore GST and export fraud involving fake invoices created by non-existent companies in Delhi-NCR to claim input tax credit and export refund on alleged mobile phone purchases. Investigators claimed so $Rs 102.5 crore was routed through two UAE-based shell entities.
Before Saturday’s arrest, the executive had temporarily attached bank accounts, demat properties and immovable assets linked to Sanjeev Arora and Hampton Sky Realty under laws relating to foreign exchange and taxation.
Why the lens on Aman Aurora?
The arrest came less than 48 hours after the EDG appointed Punjab AAP president and minister Aman Arora in a separate money laundering and land scam probe that focused on two real estate groups in Mohali, Suntec City and Altus Space Builders.
The construction company’s CEO reportedly described Gaurav Dhir of Dhir Constructions as a “close associate of a high-ranking AAP leader” and alleged that two middlemen helped secure “patronage and political protection”.
During searches, packages of $500 currency notes were allegedly thrown from the ninth floor of a high-rise building in Mohali, videos of which were circulated on social media.
Aman Arora denied any wrongdoing: “If any wrongdoing is proven against me in any investigation, I will leave politics.” At a press conference in Chandigarh on Friday, he challenged the ED to conduct a “forensic examination” of his phone and questioned why his name was missing from the agency’s first statement on the raids, only to be included in the second statement issued half an hour later.
Read also | ‘6.6% votes, 86% seats’ after Raghav Chadha’s shift: BJP sees RSP rise in Punjab, but Assembly polls a challenge
What AAP said
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who was speaking at a press conference in Sangrur on Saturday, described the ED’s actions as part of a coordinated strategy by the BJP to destabilize its government.
“The BJP’s motive is not to recover black money but to send a message that joining their party guarantees immunity,” Mann said, referring to the case of Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal.
Mittal faced action by the ED before he defected to the BJP along with six other AAP MPs on April 24 – and Mann claimed that the raids against him stopped immediately after he changed sides.
The seven defectors, including former AAP national general secretary Sandeep Pathak, former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Raghav Chadha, Swati Maliwal and Vikramjit Sahni, reduced the strength of the Rajya Sabha in the AAP from ten to three. Six of the seven – excluding Maliwal – are from Punjab.
Mann accused the BJP of trying to replicate what he called the “politics of fear” in Punjab, similar to that prevalent in West Bengal, where the party recently came to power. Since then, he has passed a confidence motion in the Punjab Assembly, which was boycotted by the Congress and other opposition parties, and launched a statewide “Shukrna Yatra” (gratitude tour) centered around new anti-sacrilege legislation in the state.
When Majithia said “Arorey vi challe”
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who has been jailed by state agencies for months on corruption charges, used this as an opportunity to attack AAP over its alleged hypocrisy over alleged misuse of investigations.
In a post dated April 25 — a day after the Rajya Sabha defections — Majithia wrote ambiguously in Punjabi: “AAP de arore vi challe” (“AAP’s Aroras will also go”).
On Saturday, after Sanjeev Arora’s arrest, Majithia detailed the ED’s findings in a post on X, and claimed that Sanjeev Arora was working as a financier for AAP.
Who are the Auroras and what is their political weight?
Punjab Assembly elections are scheduled for early 2027. With a Rajya Sabha seat wiped out, two of its most powerful ministers now subject to ED checks, and the BJP hoping to make its mark in Punjab after a massive push in Punjab, the APC faces a tough test in the only state it still rules.
Sanjeev Arora, 60, a textile and real estate businessman from Ludhiana who entered politics in 2022 as a Rajya Sabha candidate for AAP, resigned from the Senate in July 2025 after winning the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll. He was replaced by another industrialist from Ludhiana, Rajender Gupta, who went to the BJP in the Chadha-led rebellion.
In Mann’s government, he now holds three of the most economically important portfolios – Industry and Commerce, Power and Local Bodies – an accumulation that has made him the most powerful minister after the Prime Minister himself.
He had repeatedly said that he had no interest in politics until the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP approached him with a Rajya Sabha bid in 2022.
On the more recent question of possible defection to the BJP, Sanjeev Arora was unequivocally clear, ruling out any defection. He confirmed last month that he had not been in contact with Chad for the past six months.
Read also | The anti-defection bill introduced by Chadha could have stopped his shift between AAP and BJP
Regarding the ED’s actions, during the April 17 raids, when he was on an official visit to Amsterdam, Sanjeev Arora posted on X that he would fully cooperate with the investigation and expressed confidence that the truth would prevail.
Demographic issues
Sanjeev Arora’s political importance lies partly in what he represents in demographic terms.
It is a Hindu Khatri, a commercial and commercial community with a strong presence in urban areas of Punjab, especially in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, and pockets throughout Punjab, such as Abohar Fazilka.
Based on the latest census, Sikhs constitute the majority in Punjab at approximately 58%, while Hindus constitute the second largest group at approximately 39%. Other minorities, including Christians and Muslims, make up the remainder.
After the League’s landslide in 2022, which analysts attributed to its dominance among Sikh voters in rural and semi-urban areas, the party’s appointment of Arora was a nod to the urban Hindu merchant class, which has historically leaned towards the BJP or Congress.
Aman Arora, in this regard, is similar. But his political journey is completely different. A second-generation politician from Sonam in Sangrur district, he carries on the legacy of his father, the late Hardev Singh Arora, a Congress-era leader with deep roots in the Malwa belt.
He joined the AAP early, contested and won from Sonam in 2017, and has since steadily risen through the party structure to become a cabinet minister and state unit chief. He handles governance reforms and renewable energy portfolios.
This demographic is key to the BJP’s hopes of making a mark in Punjab, where it currently has only two MLAs, but recently managed to get six MLAs. The father of seven Rajya Sabha members in the state is at his side.
It announced that it would not ally with SAD, which remained its junior partner until Sukhbir Singh Badal broke the agreement on the three farm-related laws that were later withdrawn during the 2020-2021 farmers’ protest.
The BJP got less than 7% votes in the last Assembly elections, while the SDP did not. Which improved to 18% in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls but did not win a seat.
