Mann to get first Council of Ministers on March 19
Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Mar, 2022 11:35 AM
Chandigarh, March 18 (IANS) Two days after taking oath as Punjab Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann is set to get his first Council of Ministers, all first-timers, on Saturday.
Former Leader of the Opposition and a prominent Dalit face Harpal Singh Cheema may be inducted as the deputy chief minister. Cheema retained his Dirba seat.
The other probables in the Cabinet are Aman Arora, Kultar Sandhwan, Harjot Bains, Sarvjit Kaur Manuke, Baljinder Kaur, Gurmeet Singh Khudian, Neena Mittal and Kunwar Vijay Pratap.
It is learnt the party leadership is keen to induct six to seven ministers in the Council of Ministers that has space for 17 ministerial posts, excluding the Chief Minister's.
The remaining ministers will be inducted after a few months, a senior party leader told IANS.
Sunam MLA Aman Arora is a prominent Hindu face of the party and is known for his proximity with Mann. In 2018, when Mann had resigned from the post of the state president after Arvind Kejriwal apologised to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia on allegations of drug trade, Arora too had quit AAP. Both of them later rejoined the party.
Arora defeated Congress' Jaswinder Singh Dhiman by a record margin of 75,277 votes, state's highest.
First-timer Jivan Jyot Kaur, who emerged as the 'giant slayer' by showing the door to two political heavyweights -- Navjot Singh Sidhu of the Congress and Majithia, who were busy in mudslinging against each other, is likely to inducted a minister.
Another first-time Kunwar Vijay Prartap, who once served as the Amritsar SSP, is AAP's big face who registered a victory in Amritsar North by defeating his closest rival and SAD's Anil Joshi by a margin of 28,313 votes.
Party's state co-in-charge Raghav Chadha has already clarified that the induction of the Council of Ministers in government is the prerogative of Bhagwant Mann, seting aside speculations that Arvind Kejriwal will be taking the final call from Delhi.
The party is trying to maintain a balance in the Cabinet from the state's Malwa, Majha and Doaba regions.
The Malwa belt can get more ministers as the party owns 66 out of the 69 seats in the region. In Doaba, AAP won 10 out of 23 seats, while in Majha, it won 16 out of 25.
Also, this time AAP sent eight women legislators, five doctors, the richest legislator -- Kulwant Singh with assets of Rs 238 crore and won from Mohali -- and the youngest -- Narinder Kaur Bharaj, 27, to the Assembly.
The AAP recorded a thumping win by claiming 92 of the Assembly's 117 seats. The ruling Congress won 18, down from 77 in 2017.
Most of these farmers had earlier stated that they were present at the spot but were not involved in the attack. They were, at that time, charged under bailable sections such as 'rioting' and 'voluntarily causing hurt' and were let off by the SIT officials under Section 41 of the CrPC.
The Congress is witnessing internal bickering on the issue of security breach of the Prime Minister and Congress MP from Punjab Manish Tewari has termed the incidence as most unfortunate and said the matter should be probed by a sitting High Court Judge.
Addressing a gathering in Tanda in Hoshiarpur district after laying the foundation stone of development work, the Chief Minister said there was no threat to the life of the Prime Minister but he cancelled his programme on Wednesday because of the thin presence of people at the BJP's rally.
High drama was witnessed on Thursday after 125 of 179 international passengers, who arrived at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport Rajasansi, near here, from Italy, in an Air India flight tested positive on arrival. The Covid passengers were asked to quarantine in local hospital as per the guidelines of the government.
On Wednesday, The Prime Minister's rally in Ferozepur had to be cancelled due to a security lapse after some protesters blocked a route and forced his convoy to spend about 20 minutes on a flyover. The Prime Minister was enroute the National Martyrs Memorial at Hussainiwala when the incident happened.
Although the department has all infrastructural needs in place to deal with the large number of cases expected in case of the third wave becoming a reality, he also appealed to the people to get themselves fully vaccinated against the virus as it is the most potent tool to avoid Covid-19.
