After Charanjit Singh Channi was made the Chief Minister of Punjab on September 20, he formed his cabinet today. On September 26, 15 Cabinet Ministers took oath as new ministers in Punjab. Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had taken oath as new Chief Minister on September 20 following the resignation of former CM Captain Amarinder Singh. The oath-taking ceremony of the new Cabinet Ministers took place at Raj Bhavan, Chandigarh, in the presence of governor Banwarilal Purohit.
Congress MLAs Brahm Mohindra and Manpreet Singh Badal take oath as Cabinet ministers of Punjab Govt, at Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh pic.twitter.com/hbInrGHcNG
— ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2021
Rounds of discussions took place after Channi’s oath-taking ceremony to finalise the names of the new ministers. The newly elected CM of Punjab visited Delhi several times to meet the party high command to discuss the names of the ministers after his swearing-in ceremony.
The fifteen ministers who took oath on Sunday are Brahm Mohindra, Manpreet Singh Badal, Tripti Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Rana Gurjit Singh, Aruna Chaudary, Razia Sultana, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Vijay Inder Singla, Randeep Singh Nabha, Raj Kumar Verka, Sangat Singh Gilzian, Pargat Singh, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Gukrirat Singh Kotli.
MLAs Raj Kumar Verka, Sangat Gilzian, Pargat Singh, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, and Gurkirat Kotli also took as minister in Punjab Government at Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh
— ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2021
There are seven new faces in the cabinet, while eight ministers from Amarinder Singh’s cabinet retained the positions of ministers. Six ministers out of new faces have never held a position of a minister, while Rana Gurjit Singh had been a minister before. Congress leader in charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat said, “Those who could not be made ministers today will be accommodated in government setup and organisation. This exercise has been done to bring in young faces and strike a social and regional balance.”
The former ministers who were dropped from the new cabinet are Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Sunder Shyam Arora, Rana Gurmeet Sodhi, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Gurpreet Kangar. Two of those ministers who got dropped from Amarinder Singh’s cabinet questioned the decision. In a joint press conference, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Gurpreet Singh Kangar raised objections to the decision and asked what was their fault that their names were dropped. Tiwari, replying to the controversy, said it was the Chief Minister’s decision to include and exclude names from the list of ministers. However, he did praise former health minister Balbir Singh for his “exemplary work during worst days of Covid”.
It is believed that the new cabinet has been formed while keeping the upcoming assembly elections in mind. Though Channi, the first Dalit CM of Punjab, will run the government for the next few months, reports suggest that the elections would be fought under the leadership of Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Interestingly, in the new cabinet, Congress has played well with the caste calculations by including representatives from minorities, OBC, Jat Sikhs and Valmiki communities.
The controversy around Rana Gurjit Singh
Just before the ceremony, six MLAs had raised objections on including Rana Gurjit Singh as a cabinet minister. Notably, he was dropped from the cabinet in 2018 when his name emerged in a mining scandal. The six leaders in the letter written to Sidhu demanded the position should not go to Rana but to a Dalit leader with a clean image. However, their objections did not make any difference.
