Chandigarh, Sept. 23 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has issued a notice of motion in a plea challenging the election of Sanjeev Arora, Punjab industries minister, as MLA from Ludhiana West.

Arora had defeated Bharat Bhushan Ashu of the Congress by a margin of 10,637 votes.

The court, acting on the plea from Jaswinder Singh Malhi, a Ludhiana resident, sought response by October 13. The plea alleges that Arora's campaign expenditure exceeded the legal limit of Rs.40 lakh many times over and that he had misused state machinery, made religious appeals, and leveraged paid media coverage to unfairly influence the June 2025 byelection.

The petition seeks to declare his election void under Section 100 of the Representation of the Pe...