As many as five MLAs are likely to take oath during the Punjab cabinet expansion on Monday.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. (File pic)
Three months after ten cabinet ministers (including the chief minister) were inducted, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann will expand his cabinet on Monday.
There are a total of eight vacancies in the cabinet and five of them are likely to be filled in the expansion.
While Chetan Singh Jourmajra (Samana), Fauja Singh Sarari (Guru Har Sahai), Inderbir Singh Nijjar (Amritsar South), and Aman Arora (Sunam) have been named among males, Anmol Gagan Mann (Kharar), Baljinder Kaur (Talwandi Sabo) and Saravjit Kaur Manuke (Jagraon) are being considered among women.
AAP TO CREATE CASTE, RELIGIOUS, GENDER BALANCE IN CABINET
Punjab’s polity reported a generation shift in 2022 as 85 out of a total of all 92 AAP MLAs are first-timers.
The shift was also reflected in the Mann cabinet that earlier in March this year had inducted eight first-timers as ministers. Sources say three out of a total of five MLAs being inducted as cabinet ministers on Monday could be seniors who had won the 2017 election. Aman Arora, Baljinder Kaur, and Sarabjit Kaur Manuke reached the assembly a second time.
The AAP government, which tried to balance the cabinet in March by inducting two Dalits, two Hindus, and a woman MLA is likely to maintain a caste, religious, and gender balance in the Monday extension.
After Vijay Singla was removed as a cabinet minister, another Hindu leader, Aman Arora, is likely to be inducted as a cabinet minister. One woman MLA among Anmol Gagan Mann, Baljinder Kaur, and Sarabjit Kaur Manuke will be given a cabinet berth.
Saravjit Kaur Manuke, if inducted, will be the third Dalit minister after Harpal Cheema and Lal Chand Kataru Chak in the Mann cabinet. AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal had also promised before the elections that a Dalit would be made a deputy chief minister if the party forms the government.