The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab named New and Renewable Energy Minister Aman Arora as the new president of its state unit on Friday.

The development comes a month after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said he would speak to the AAP leadership on the appointment of a full-time president of the party’s state unit, expressing a desire to step down from the post.

Arora, a prominent Hindu face of AAP in Punjab, will be the president of the party’s state unit and MLA Amansher Singh Sherry Kalsi its working president.

The move also comes a day before the results of the recent bypolls to four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala.

The by-elections were necessitated after the incumbent legislators were elected to the Lok Sabha earlier this year.

The bypolls are being seen as a litmus test for Mann, whose government has completed two-and-a-half-years in office.

“Today, I have handed over the responsibility of party president to two of my close colleagues, Cabinet Minister Aman Arora and MLA Amansher Singh Sherry Kalsi. The party has decided that Aman Arora will serve as the party president and Sherry Kalsi as the working president,” the chief minister posted on X.

“I have full confidence in both my colleagues that they will strengthen the party and the organization in Punjab in the coming time and take it to new heights,” he added.

Last month, after addressing a rally in Chabbewal, Bhagwant Mann said he had been holding the post of the party president in Punjab for seven years. “Being chief minister, I have big responsibilities.

I have 13-14 departments.

I will speak to the party to appoint a full-time state unit chief so that the responsibilities can be divided,” he had said then. Mann was appointed AAP’s Punjab unit chief in 2017 when he was the MP from Sangrur.

He led the party in Punjab during the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the 2022 assembly polls. AAP stormed to power in 2022, winning 92 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly.