On March 19, Bhagwant Mann will be appointed to the first Council of Ministers.

PAROMITA DAS

On Saturday, two days after taking the oath of office as Punjab Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann will appoint his first Council of Ministers, all of whom will be first-timers.

Harpal Singh Cheema, the former Leader of the Opposition and a prominent Dalit face, may be appointed as the deputy chief minister. Cheema kept his Dirba seat.

AmanArora, KultarSandhwan, HarjotBains, SarvjitKaurManuke, BaljinderKaur, Gurmeet Singh Khudian, Neena Mittal, and Kunwar Vijay Pratap are the other Cabinet candidates.

The party leadership is said to be eager to appoint six to seven ministers to the Council of Ministers, which has room for 17 ministerial positions, excluding the Chief Minister’s.

The remaining ministers will be appointed in the coming months, according to a senior party leader.

Sunam MLA AmanArora is a prominent Hindu face of the party who is close to Mann. Arora left AAP in 2018, after Mann resigned as state president after ArvindKejriwal apologized to ShiromaniAkali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia for allegations of drug trafficking. They both later returned to the party.

Arora defeated Congress candidate Jaswinder Singh Dhiman by a state-record margin of 75,277 votes.

First-timer JivanJyotKaur, who emerged as the ‘giant slayer’ by kicking out two political heavyweights – Navjot Singh Sidhu of the Congress and Majithia, who were slinging mud at each other – is likely to be inducted as a minister.

Another first-time candidate, Kunwar Vijay Prartap, who previously served as the Amritsar SSP, is AAP’s big face in Amritsar North, where he defeated SAD’s Anil Joshi by a margin of 28,313 votes.

RaghavChadha, the party’s state co-in-charge, has already stated that the appointment of the Council of Ministers is the prerogative of Bhagwant Mann, putting to rest speculations that ArvindKejriwal will make the final call from Delhi.

The party is attempting to maintain a balance in the Cabinet from the Malwa, Majha, and Doaba regions of the state.

The Malwa belt may see more ministers as the party holds 66 of the region’s 69 seats. The AAP won 10 of the 23 seats in Doaba and 16 of the 25 seats in Majha.

In addition, the AAP sent eight women legislators, five doctors, the richest legislator (Kulwant Singh, who won from Mohali with assets worth Rs 238 crore) and the youngest (NarinderKaurBharaj, 27) to the Assembly this time.

The AAP won a landslide victory, taking 92 of the Assembly’s 117 seats. The ruling Congress received 18, down from 77 in 2017.