Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday announced the names of his Cabinet ministers. They will be sworn in on March 19.
Against 17 vacancies in the Cabinet – besides the chief minister – the Aam Aadmi Party has inducted only ten ministers, according to The Tribune.
The names announced include MLAs Harpal Singh Cheema, Dr Baljit Kaur, Harbhajan Singh ETO, Dr Vijay Singla, Lal Chand Kataruchak, S Gurmir Singh Meet Hayer, S Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Laljit Singh Bhullar, Bram Shankar (Jimpa), and Harjot Singh Bains.
Out of the list, only Cheema and Meet Hayer have won their second term in the Punjab Assembly.
Dr Baljit Kaur is the only woman in the Mann-led Cabinet. The 46-year-old is an eye surgeon who left her job in the Punjab government to fight her maiden election, according to The Indian Express.
Kaur had defeated Shiromani Akali Dal leader Harpreet Singh with a margin of 40,621 votes from the Malout Assembly seat on March 10.
During Friday’s announcement, Mann congratulated his council of ministers. “The people of Punjab have given a lot of responsibility to all of us,” he said in a tweet. “We have to serve the people by working day and night.”
The Aam Aadmi Party had won a thumping majority in Punjab, bagging 92 of the 117 Assembly constituencies. Mann, who was announced as the chief ministerial candidate in January, took oath as the 18th chief minister of Punjab in Nawanshahr district’s Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh on March 16.
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