New Delhi: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is going to expand its cabinet for the first time on Monday and the oath-taking ceremony of the new Ministers will be held at Raj Bhawan at 5 pm today. The discussions are underway on the names of the new Ministers, the new faces who will join the Bhagwant Mann government. This comes after CM Bhagwant Mann visited Delhi to meet AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal last week. During this meeting, there was a discussion about the cabinet expansion of Punjab and the names of the possible ministers were also mentioned, news agency ANI reported citing sources.
However, Bhagwant Mann denied that such a discussion took place: “There was no discussion about cabinet expansion in the meeting with Arvind Kejriwal, we will decide on it in Punjab”.
The cabinet expansion comes after ruling AAP lost the Sangrur Lok Sabha by-election recently while civic elections are slated to be held in Punjab soon.
With this in mind, this expansion is likely to bring in more representation to harmonise the Punjab cabinet. According to ANI sources, Dwaba and Majha regions can be represented in this cabinet expansion, because most of the Ministers in the current cabinet are from the Malwa region.
A total of 5 to 6 new ministers, including a woman MLA, are likely to take oath on Monday, ANI reported sources as saying. Currently, Dr Baljit Kaur is the only woman minister in the Bhagwant Mann government. Jeevanjot Kaur from Amritsar East and Sarvjit Kaur Manuke from Jagrao are among the names expected to be inducted into the cabinet. Besides them, ANI sources said that the name of Aman Arora, MLA from Sunam, is also being discussed along with Amritsar South MLA Inderbir Singh Nijjar, Fauja Singh Sarari, MLA from Guru Har Sahai, Samana MLA Chetan Singh Joramajra.
Meanwhile, the portfolios of some ministers can also be changed. With CM Bhagwant Mann forming the government, the Punjab cabinet got a total of 10 ministers. Later, Health Minister Vijay Singla was removed due to corruption charges and the strength then reduced to 9 ministers.