Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh.
Punjab Ministers List 2022: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann today inducted 10 ministers in his cabinet including one women minister. Those who took oath as the cabinet minister include Harpal Singh Cheema, Baljit Kaur, Harbhajan Singh, Lal Chand, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Laljit Singh Bhullar, Bram Shanker Jimpa, Harjot Singh Bains and Vijay Singla. Of these 10 ministers, eight are first-time MLAs. Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh.
On the other hand, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has also decided to nominate Kultar Singh Sandhwan as Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. The newly inducted ministers will assume charge in the Punjab Civil Secretariat later today and the first cabinet meeting of the AAP government will be held in the afternoon.
There are 18 berths in the cabinet, including the chief minister. Of the ten, five MLAs represent the Malwa region, four Majha and one legislator is from Doaba. Four MLAs represent reserve constituencies–Dirba, Jandiala, Malout and Bhoa. The ministers include Harpal Singh Cheema, a second-time legislator from Dirba and the party’s Dalit face. He was also the Leader of the Opposition in the previous Assembly. Two-time Barnala MLA Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer has also found a berth in the Mann-led cabinet.
Other MLAs are Dr Baljit Kaur, Harbhajan Singh from Jandiala, Dr Vijay Singla from Mansa, Lal Chand from Bhoa, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal from Ajnala, Laljit Singh Bhullar from Patti, Brahm Shanker from Hoshiarpur and Harjot Bains from Anandpur Sahib. Cheema, an advocate by profession, had defeated Shiromani Akali Dal’s Gulzar Singh Moonak by a margin of 50,655 votes. He was first elected as an MLA in 2017 and also served as a member of the Assembly committee on the welfare of SCs, STs and BCs.
Meet Hayer, president of the AAP’s youth wing, defeated SAD nominee Kulwant Singh Keetu by a margin of 37,622 votes from the Barnala seat. The lone woman who found ministerial berth is Dr Baljit Kaur, who won from Malout. An eye surgeon, 46, she is the daughter of Sadhu Singh, who remained an AAP MP from Faridkot from 2014 to 2019.
She joined AAP after resigning from her government job at the Muktsar civil hospital. During election meetings, she had even examined eye patients. Kaur defeated SAD nominee Harpreet Singh by 40,261 votes from Malout in the Muktsar district.
Dr Vijay Singla, 52, won from Mansa, where he defeated popular Punjabi singer and Congress candidate Shubhdeep Singh, also called Sidhu Moosewala, by a huge margin of 63,323 votes. Singla is a dentist and did Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Punjabi University, Patiala.
Harjot Bains has been elected from the Anandpur Sahib constituency. He defeated former speaker and Congress candidate Rana K P Singh. Bains, a lawyer by profession, had unsuccessfully contested from Sahnewal in 2017. Bains is a former president of the party’s youth wing.
Laljit Singh Bhullar became MLA from the Patti seat. He defeated political stalwart Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, who is the son-in-law of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Bhullar joined AAP in 2019.
Harbhajan Singh won from Jandiala after defeating Punjab Congress working president Sukhwinder Singh Danny. Harbhajan had unsuccessfully contested from the seat in 2017
Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal was elected MLA from Ajnala. He defeated SAD candidate Amarpal Singh. Dhaliwal had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar. Lal Chand Kataruchakk, who was president of the party’s SC wing, won from Bhoa seat in Pathankot. He trounced Congress candidate Joginder Pal.
Bram Shanker Jimpa has been elected from the Hoshiarpur seat. He defeated former minister and Congress nominee Sunder Sham Arora. Earlier, the names of Aman Arora, Baljinder Kaur and Sarvjit Kaur Manuke, who are two-time AAP MLAs, were also doing the rounds for ministerial berths.
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit had on Wednesday administered the oath of office and secrecy to Bhagwant Mann in a ceremony at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
The AAP bagged 92 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly, decimating the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party combine, and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress-SAD (Sanyukt) alliance.
(With PTI Inputs)
