From the arrest of former Punjab minister and senior Congress leader Bharat Bhushan Ashu by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau in 2022 to the arrest of senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Punjab minister Sanjeev Arora on Saturday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), allegations of “political vendetta” have come full circle in Ludhiana West.

Nearly four years ago, months after the AAP swept to power in Punjab with a brute majority, the state Vigilance Bureau arrested Ashu in the alleged Rs 2,000-crore foodgrain transportation scam. The Congress had then accused the ruling AAP of carrying out a “political witch-hunt” and misusing the Vigilance Bureau.

Ashu, a two-time MLA from Ludhiana West, had lost the 2022 Assembly election to AAP’s Gurpreet Gogi. Following his arrest, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann defended the action, saying the government would “spare no one who has looted Punjab”.

“We are not doing political vendetta. Those who have looted Punjab won’t be spared. We have proceeded only after having concrete evidence,” Mann had said then, describing Ashu as an “arrogant minister” during his tenure. “A minister is not God who cannot be held accountable.”

Ashu remained in jail for nearly seven months before securing bail from the Punjab and Haryana High Court in March 2023. In August 2024, he was again arrested by the ED in a money laundering case linked to the same allegations, before getting bail in December that year.

In a significant setback to the Punjab government, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in December 2024 quashed the FIRs registered against Ashu by the Vigilance Bureau, calling the proceedings a “pure vendetta”. The court observed that the criminal proceedings amounted to a “misuse of power” intended solely to “harass” him.

The political narrative has now reversed.

The Ludhiana West bypoll in June last year, necessitated after the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi from a gunshot injury in January 2025, saw Congress field Ashu once again. The AAP, meanwhile, fielded industrialist and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora.

Arora defeated Ashu by more than 10,000 votes and was later inducted into the Cabinet with key portfolios including Power, Local Bodies, and Industries and Commerce.

Now, ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, Arora himself has landed in legal trouble.

The ED arrested Arora from his official residence in Chandigarh in connection with an alleged money laundering case linked to his firm Hampton Sky Realty Limited, formerly known as Ritesh Properties & Industries Limited (RPIL).

In a statement, the ED alleged that Arora’s company was involved in “large-scale money laundering” through fake GST purchases of mobile phones worth over Rs 100 crore and subsequent exports aimed at “round-tripping illegitimate funds from Dubai to India”.

The agency claimed the transactions caused losses to the exchequer while leading to “personal enrichment”.

After becoming a minister, Arora had stepped down as managing director of the company. Currently, his wife Sandhya Arora and son Kavya Arora hold top positions in the firm.

In a statement issued after his arrest, the company denied wrongdoing, asserting that all mobile phone exports were genuine and verified by government authorities at every stage.

“Every single rupee of export proceeds was received through proper banking channels. Nothing was retained, kept offshore or round-tripped,” the company said.

It added that the firm entered the mobile phone export business in May 2023 and exported 44,471 branded phones, more than 96% of them iPhones.

The company has business interests across sectors including real estate, luxury residential townships, business parks, garments, hospitality, and retail.

Fresh trigger

Arora’s arrest has triggered a fresh political slugfest in Punjab, with the AAP accusing the BJP-led Centre of using central agencies to target Opposition leaders.

AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Mann both alleged that the BJP was attempting to weaken the party ahead of the 2027 elections. “The BJP is using agencies like the ED as weapons to scare Opposition leaders into joining the BJP. The end of this ED-BJP alliance will begin from Punjab,” Mann said.

In a post on X, Kejriwal compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mughal ruler Aurangzeb. “Several hundred years ago, Aurangzeb perpetrated atrocities in Punjab, but the Gurus confronted him and refused to bow. Modi ji is also perpetrating atrocities on Punjab. The people of Punjab will confront him and save the country from oppression,” Kejriwal wrote.

The BJP rejected the allegations.

Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu said that “wherever corruption and wrongdoing are detected, action will be taken”. He also accused Mann of using investigative agencies and pressure tactics against leaders within his own party to maintain control.

Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar said Mann claimed he would eliminate the “cancer of corruption” but was now “defending corrupt ministers”.

The Congress, meanwhile, sought to target both the BJP and the AAP.

Congress general secretary and Punjab affairs in-charge Bhupesh Baghel alleged that while the BJP uses central agencies like the ED, the AAP deploys the Vigilance Bureau against political opponents.

Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said Congress leaders would “not be intimidated either by the ED of the BJP or the Vigilance Bureau of the AAP”.

Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa took a more nuanced line, saying that if sufficient evidence existed against Arora, action should follow.

“When AAP leaders face investigations, they call it political vendetta instead of addressing the allegations,” Bajwa said.

Ashu, who spent over a year in jail and later resigned as Punjab Congress working president after his bypoll defeat, said the AAP could not hide behind claims of vendetta whenever allegations surfaced against its leaders. “We are completely against vendetta, whether by the AAP or BJP. But wrongdoing cannot be concealed under its garb,” Ashu told The Indian Express.

“In my case, the FIRs registered by the Vigilance Bureau under the AAP government were quashed by the High Court during their own tenure. They even alleged that I owned hotels in Dubai. Were any such properties ever found? That was pure vendetta,” he said.

“Now, when similar allegations are surfacing against Arora, the AAP is calling it vendetta.”