Government Directorate (ED) searched the home Different properties of Aam Aadmi Occasion (AAP) chief, businessman-turned-politician and Punjab cupboard minister Sanjeev Arora have been eliminated in Ludhiana on Friday.
That is the second time that the ED has raided Mr. Arora’s properties, the earlier raid being carried out on October 7, 2024, for alleged “unlawful change of land use and different irregularities” by his firm M/S Hampton Sky Realty Restricted (previously Ritesh Industries and Properties Restricted (RPIL)), which has enterprise pursuits in actual property, business and industrial housing, retail, hospitality, clothes and medical tasks.
This comes two days after the ED performed a raid in Jalandhar on the premises of AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Kumar Mittal, founder and president of Beautiful Skilled College (LPU).
Arora was nominated as Rajya Sabha member from Punjab in 2022, however resigned from the higher home in 2025 to contest a by-election from the upscale Ludhiana West constituency following the demise of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi. Arora received and was ultimately appointed to the state cupboard and given the portfolios of trade, commerce, native our bodies and powers.
Arora, an actual property mogul, is Punjab’s richest politician throughout social gathering strains, with private belongings price Rs 278 million, in response to election affidavits filed in the course of the referendum. Together with his spouse Sandhya Arora’s belongings, the couple’s whole belongings are 321.11 billion rupees. His wealth exceeds that of politicians like Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal, Congress MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, AAP MLA Kulwant Singh and Congress MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh, who additionally personal belongings between Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore.
“Good morning! Actions have been taken by the Enforcement Directorate on my premises. As a accountable citizen, I’ll absolutely cooperate with the authorities. I’m assured that the reality will prevail,” Arora posted on X on Friday morning. Occasion chief and AAP nationwide convener Arvind Kejriwal identified that this was the second assault on an AAP chief’s dwelling in three days and posted on Are you able to inform me how a lot black cash was recovered within the raid? Not even a single rupee? The entire nation is watching how you’re indulging in petty politics only for energy.”
enterprise pursuits
Mr. Arora was the Chairman and Managing Director of M/S Hampton Sky Realty Restricted, which owns the luxurious residential mission ‘Hampton Houses’ in Ludhiana, amongst others.
After changing into a cupboard minister, Mr. Arora resigned from all positions in his firm and ordered different associates to “deal with public service.” At present, his son Kavya Arora is the Managing Director and his spouse Sandhya is the Director of the corporate.
The corporate has additionally developed Hampton Court docket Enterprise Park, a sprawling industrial park unfold over 43 acres in Ludhiana. Different tasks embody Narayana e-Techno College, CBSE Related Faculties, Hampton Narayana Tremendous Specialty Hospital, Hampton Plaza Industrial Complicated, Hampton Estates (a deliberate business mission in Ludhiana), Hampton Farms (a farmhouse mission on 30 acres of land), Hampton Resort, and many others.
Regardless of his enterprise ties in Ludhiana, Mr. Arora and his household lived principally in Gurgaon, Haryana, earlier than the elections. He has continued to carry the Home in his constituency since his election. Arora additionally runs the Krishna Plan Breast Most cancers Charitable Belief, an NGO for most cancers sufferers in reminiscence of her mother and father who died from cancer-related diseases.
Arora based RPIL in 1986 and began manufacturing clothes. He began an export-oriented clothes model, Catalina Bay, which was exported primarily to the US. In 2006, the corporate diversified into actual property and two years later, Arora launched a girls’s clothes model referred to as ‘Femella’.
In 2019, Arora additionally entered the non-ferrous metals enterprise with Tenelon Restricted, which partnered with Suzuki Motors at its Gujarat plant beneath the federal government’s Make in India scheme.
Why is ED investigating him?
The ED probe in opposition to Arora and his enterprise accomplice is in reference to the alleged ‘land use change rip-off case’.
After raids on Arora-related properties in Ludhiana, Delhi, Chandigarh, Jalandhar and Gurgaon on October 7, 2024, the central company issued a press launch stating that Hampton Sky Realty “hid information and misused industrial land for residential use, inflicting enormous loss to the Punjab authorities”.
The raids have been carried out at 17 completely different enterprise and residential premises related to Arora and different actual property brokers, together with Ludhiana-based Hemant Sood, Pardeep Kumar Agarwal, Gurmeet Singh, Jalandhar-based Chander Shekhar Agarwal, M/s Royal Industries Restricted (RIL). The ED took this motion primarily based on a legal criticism registered in opposition to RPIL in a courtroom in Ludhiana and an FIR registered in opposition to RIL by Ludhiana police.
“Hampton Sky Realty and RIL have been allotted industrial land by the Punjab authorities with sure circumstances to advertise trade, however RIL illegally bought the allotted land in violation of the allotment circumstances,” the company mentioned.
“The ED investigation additional revealed that M/s Hampton Sky Realty had alienated using the land with out the permission of the Authorities of Punjab and subsequently developed a housing mission and a enterprise park on the mentioned land by concealing materials information whereas searching for permission for the mission from the Authorities of Punjab. By means of all these unlawful actions, M/s RPIL and M/s RIL had precipitated losses to the Authorities of Punjab and generated enormous proceeds of crime,” the ED mentioned on the time.
