Punjab government department found ‘non-existent’ nearly 20 months after allocation to minister

The Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab on Friday said that the Department of Administrative Reforms allocated to Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal in May 2023 was “non-existent”.

A gazette notification issued by the Department of General Administration said that Dhaliwal would now hold charge of only the Non-Resident Indian Affairs Department. It also said that the change was in effect from February 7.

Dhaliwal initially held the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare portfolio, The Tribune reported. He was relieved of the department during a Cabinet reshuffle in May 2023, after which he retained the Non-Resident Indian Affairs Department, while also being allocated the Department of Administrative Reforms.

Dhaliwal retained the two departments in another Cabinet reshuffle in September 2024.

On Saturday, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party had made governance a “joke” in Punjab.

“Imagine for 20 months the CM [Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann] did not even knew that a minister was running a “non existent department,’” Bhandari said on social media.

The chief of the BJP’s social media cell Amit Malviya described Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal as a “charlatan who must be banished” from public life..

“You can imagine the crisis in Punjab government if it took nearly 20 months to realise that a department assigned to one of its prominent ministers…

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