Punjab minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal was found to have been running a non-existent department in the ministry for close to 20 months, The Tribune reported, citing a gazette notification issued by the chief secretary of the state.
The notification said, “In partial modification of the previous Punjab govt notification regarding the allocation of portfolios, among ministers, the department of administrative reforms earlier allotted to Dhaliwal is not in existence as on date.”
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Aam Aadmi Party leader Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal will now only hold the portfolio of NRI affairs in the Punjab cabinet.
The notification stated that the decision to amend Dhaliwal’s portfolio, on the orders of Punjab chief minister Bhagwat Mann, had taken effect on February 7, 2025.
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Initially, Dhaliwal held the agriculture and farmers welfare portfolio, which he was shifted from during a Cabinet reshuffle in May 2023. After this, he was given the administrative reforms department.
Even after another Cabinet reshuffle in September 2024, Dhaliwal held on to the department, which only existed on paper.
Unnamed sources told The Tribune that there was no staff allocated to the department of administrative reforms nor did they hold any meetings.
A source told The Indian Express that after Dhaliwal was given the administrative reforms department, he asked the government for clarity as his department did not have a secretary.
Dhaliwal has also recently been in the news as the minister of NRI affairs, handling the US deportees landing in Amritsar.
Opposition reactions
BJP leader Amit Malviya reacted to the Punjab government’s admission and said in a post on X, “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.”
National spokesperson for the BJP, Pradeep Bhandari also slammed the AAP-led government in Punjab saying, “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.”
Bathinda MP and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal also reacted to the news saying, “Governance AAP-Punjab style. Allocate non existent departments to ministers who themselves are ignorant of the portfolios they hold. All this is happening because ministers have no role in governance as the govt is being run in remote control from Delhi.”