Arora Sworn into Panjab Cabinet; Protests Against Land Pooling Intensify

With 19 months to go for the 2027 Assembly elections in Panjab, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann carried out yet another cabinet reshuffle, his seventh in a little over three years. In this reshuffle, newly elected Ludhiana (West) Member of Legislative Assembly Sanjeev Arora was inducted into the cabinet, while Non Resident Indians (NRI) Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal resigned. Arora, a 61-year-old Ludhiana-based industrialist and social worker, who served as a Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) Member for three years, was sworn in as a cabinet minister after winning the Ludhiana (West) by-poll. The Panjab diaspora said Dhaliwal had renounced his US citizenship to work for Aam Aadmi Party but had failed to deliver. The diaspora has welcomed Arora being made the NRI minister but has demanded he performs. Indian National Congress MLA Pargat Singh has raised concerns over Arora’s appointment as the Industry and NRI minister. He pointed out that appointing Arora as minister of a department connected to his businesses amounted to conflict of interest. Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal said Arora is notorious for converting industrial land into residential land. Now that the government has allowed industrial land to be fragmented, as a minister Arora would do just that and the appointment is an office of profit issue. Meanwhile, the govt is facing flak over its land polling scheme. Several landowners and farmers from Siaun, Kurdi, Patton, Kishanpura, and Naraingarh villages near Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar have decided against giving their land to Greater Mohali Area Development Authority’s plan to acquire 3,537 acres. Panchayats (village councils) and representatives from six villages in Jalandhar and one in Phagwara, where 1,200 acres of land is coming under the land pooling policy, have also decided to unite in opposition to the state govt's move to acquire land in the villages. Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Badal announced a series of protests, starting from Ludhiana on July 15, against the state govt's land pooling policy (earlier coverage).