Channi arrives in Delhi, discusses cabinet expansion
CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, his two deputies Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and OP Soni, and state Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu met the central leadership of the Congress in Delhi on Tuesday to discuss the expansion of the state cabinet, said people aware of the details.
The party high command was represented by AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and AICC Punjab incharge Harish Rawat. Rajya Sabha member Ambika Soni also met Channi and his team separately.
With less than five months to go for the assembly elections in the state, Channi and Sidhu are keen to expand the council of ministers to accommodate some people from the group that took on former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh. They also want to get cracking on an 18-point agenda drawn up by the central leadership to deliver on the poll promises made by the party in 2017.
“The new cabinet will see the induction of a few new faces by keeping out some of those who were part of the Amarinder Singh cabinet and involved in controversies to give it a fresh look and make a clean break from the previous setup,” a person familiar with the matter said, preferring anonymity.
The names doing the rounds for inclusion in the cabinet include Inderbir Singh Bolaria (Amritsar south), Amrinder Singh Raja Warring (Gidderbaha), Pargat Singh (Jalandhar Cantt), Sangat Singh Gilizian (Urmar) and Madan Lal Jalalpur (Ghanaur). Gilzian, who has been seeking due representation for backward classes in the cabinet, had made a personal request to Rahul Gandhi for inclusion in the new cabinet when he was in Chandigarh to attend the oath-taking ceremony of the new chief minister and his two deputies on Monday, the people said.