Punjab Opp tears into AAP govt over minister with charge of ‘non-existent’ dept for 21 months

This effectively meant that for nearly 21 months Dhaliwal had continued to hold the charge of a department that did not exist. Dhaliwal had been assigned the administrative reforms in May 2023 during a Cabinet reshuffle when he was relieved of the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare portfolio but continued to the NRI Affairs.

Dhaliwal Saturday sought to downplay the issue saying the AAP was “into saving Punjab” and putting it back on track. “Departments have no meaning for me,” he told reporters in Jalandhar.

Sources said no staffer was assigned to the minister for the administrative reforms department and no meeting related to it was ever held.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who was in Sangrur, too downplayed the issue saying the name of the department had been changed.

“We changed its name and created a new department. Earlier, it was just for the name. There was no staff or office. Now, it has been created to bring reforms in the bureaucracy. There are two departments, one is with minister Aman Arora,” he told reporters, adding that his government was looking to merge some departments which have the same functions.

According to sources, the administrative reforms department was part of the governance reforms department, which has now been renamed as the good governance and information technology department and is headed by Arora.

The opposition, however, did not buy the arguments with BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh saying that “the shocking revelation” of a minister heading a ‘non-existent’ department for 21 months “has exposed the utter incompetence and disorder” in Mann dispensation.

“This government has turned into an absolute circus. When a state is run by irresponsible and clueless leaders, this is the kind of disaster that follows,” Chugh said in a statement.

In Delhi, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said “this can happen only in an AAP government” that for months someone was heading a department that didn’t even exist.

Punjab BJP general secretary Subhash Sharma said, “That a non-existent department was allocated, shows the government’s mental bankruptcy. Neither those who allotted the department, nor those who got it were aware of the fact that it was not in existence”.

State Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Leader of Opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha Partap Singh Bajwa asked if this was the “badlav”(change) that the AAP had promised.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia said the very fact that Dhaliwal did not know that the department allotted to him did not exist, speaks volumes about the state of governance under the AAP. He said it was shocking that the anomaly came to light after the Governor restored this department. “Dhaliwal owes an explanation to Punjabis. This only proves that he did not call a meeting of the department for 20 months nor did he carry out any administrative reforms in the state,” the SAD leader said.

On similar lines, Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal in a post on X said, “all this is happening because ministers have no role in governance as the government is being run by remote control from Delhi”.

In Chandigarh, AAP spokesperson Neel Garg accused Akali Dal and Congress leaders of unnecessarily creating an issue out of nothing.

Garg said that this department was started in 1994. It has existed since its inception under the “Allocation of Business Rules 1994.” In 2018, the ministry was under the then CM Captain Amarinder Singh. “Therefore, claims that this department never existed are completely baseless and false,” he said.

Garg said both central and state governments have dissolved various departments multiple times in the past. “For example, during the BJP government, there used to be a ‘Disinvestment Ministry,’ which the UPA government later dissolved because they did not feel the need for it at that time. Similarly, the Mann government has issued a notification dissolving the Administrative Reforms Department, as its work is being handled by the ‘Governance Reforms Department.’ Hence, the government no longer requires this department,” said Garg, urging the Opposition leaders “to focus on raising real public issues” instead of highlighting baseless matters.

WITH PTI