Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and minister in the Punjab cabinet, headed two departments; the only problem was one of them did not exist. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's government took nearly 20 months to notice and then make the necessary amendments through a gazette notification.
The Punjab government admitted that the Department of Administrative Reforms, allocated to Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, was "non-existent." Mr Dhaliwal will now retain only the NRI Affairs portfolio.
Mr Dhaliwal was initially in charge of the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department but was relieved of that responsibility in a Cabinet reshuffle in May 2023. He then retained the NRI Affairs portfolio while being assigned to the Administrative Reforms Department.
In another Cabinet reshuffle in September 2024, Mr Dhaliwal continued to hold both departments. However, it has now emerged that the Administrative Reforms Department was non-existent.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed the AAP-led Punjab government over the issue, questioning how a minister was allowed to run a non-existent department for nearly two years.
"AAP has made Governance in Punjab a joke! The AAP Minister ran a department for 20 Months which never existed! Imagine for 20 months the CM did not even knew that a minister was running a " NON EXISTENT DEPARMENT," BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said.
"We have changed its name and made it a department. Earlier, it was just a name; there was no office, but we have made it a department. One department is of the government with Aman Arora, and one is of the administration; we have merged both," Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said.
"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 never actually existed. Arvind Kejriwal is a charlatan who must be banished from public life," wrote BJP's Amit Malviya.
Mr Dhaliwal has been in the spotlight as Punjab's NRI Affairs Minister, particularly since the United States began deporting illegal Indian migrants who arrived in chains and shackles in Amritsar on February 5.
