A two-time Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Sunam and a minister in the Bhagwant Mann Cabinet, Aman Arora was on Friday named the AAP’s Punjab president, succeeding Mann in the post.

A prominent Hindu face in the AAP, 50-year-old Arora’s name was formally cleared to take over the reins of the party by the party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) that met in Delhi on Thursday. While the decision to appoint him as the state unit chief was cleared a few weeks ago, the party was waiting for the opportune moment to announce Mann’s replacement on Friday, a day after four Assembly bypolls were held in Punjab.

The party has appointed Batala MLA Amansher Singh “Shery” Kalsi, 37, as the state vice president, replacing Principal Budh Ram, the Budhalada MLA. Kalsi had unsuccessfully contested the recent Lok Sabha elections from Gurdaspur.

“Today I have handed over the responsibility of the party president to two of my close colleagues, Cabinet Minister Aman Arora and MLA Amansher Singh ‘Shery’ Kalsi… I have full confidence in both my colleagues that they will strengthen the party and the organisation in Punjab in the coming time and take it to new heights,” Mann wrote on X.

With the AAP appearing to lose out on the Hindu vote to the BJP in the recent Lok Sabha polls, party insiders said the AAP wanted to appoint a Hindu face to helm the party’s state unit. Between the 2022 Assembly polls and the general election this year, the BJP’s vote share rose considerably from 6.6% to 18%, with the AAP dropping from 42% to 26.2%.

As a leader from the Ramgarhia OBC community, Kalsi’s appointment is aimed at consolidating support, particularly in the Majha region from where he hails.

In later October, on the sidelines of a rally in the bypoll-bound Chabbewal seat, Man had himself suggested the change was in the offing. “I have been the president of the AAP in Punjab for the last seven years. Working on two posts adds to the pressure on the CM. As the CM, I have huge responsibilities, overseeing 13-14 departments,” Mann had said.

“While I have been fulfilling my duties as the state president with full dedication, I believe the AAP needs a dedicated president to handle party responsibilities full time. I will discuss the appointment of a full-time AAP state unit president with the party high command so that responsibilities can be distributed,” he had added.

Mann was first appointed as the AAP’s Punjab convener in May 2017, after the Assembly poll debacle that year. However, he resigned in March 2018 in protest a day after national convener Arvind Kejriwal apologised to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a defamation case for making false allegations on the latter’s involvement in drug trade.

He was again appointed the state chief in January 2019, and continued to hold the post even after becoming the CM in March 2022. The precedent for this dual role was set by Kejriwal, who remained the Delhi CM and the national convener of the AAP until he stepped down as the CM in September.

Arora, whose late father Bhagwan Dass Arora was a Congress minister and the Sunam MLA from 1992 to 2000, is known for tending to his constituency and curbing anti-incumbency. Once a dyed-in-the-wool Congress leader, Arora switched over to the AAP in 2016 and was later appointed as the state president of the party’s industry and trade wing.

Soon after joining the party, he was fielded by the AAP in the 2017 Assembly polls from Sunam, which he won by more than 30,000 votes – the highest margin of any AAP MLA. He created a niche for himself as a vocal Opposition leader in the Assembly during his first term, when the Congress was in power. He held the distinction in that term of introducing the most Private Member Bills in the Assembly.

Later, he also served as co-president, alongside Mann, of the party’s state unit for less than a year till 2018, and chairman of the 2019 Lok Sabha campaign committee.

In the 2022 Assembly elections, he retained Sunam with a margin of 75,277 votes, winning each of the 209 booths in his constituency to set a state record. He was then appointed to the Cabinet and holds the portfolios of employment generation, skill development and training, new and renewable energy, governance reforms and grievance redressal, and printing and stationery.

In a portfolio shuffle in March this year, Mann had divested two of his departments – housing, and information and public relations – to Arora.

Among the residents of Sunam, Arora is best known for running an NGO named for his father. The popular programmes he has run through this group include the Clinic On Wheels initiative, and medical and dental camps. He also runs a “sewa kendra” of his own through which residents can access government-related services.

However, Arora has had his share of controversies too. In January, he was convicted and sentenced to two years of “rigorous imprisonment” in a case going back 16 years. In 2009, his brother in law Rajinder Deepa had filed a complaint alleging trespassing and voluntarily causing hurt. He was granted bail the same day as he was convicted, and later filed an appeal.