Chandigarh, July 3 Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria on Thursday administered the oath of office and secrecy to newly elected Ludhiana (West) legislator Sanjeev Arora at the Punjab Raj Bhawan.
With the induction of the MLA as a minister, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann expanded his Cabinet to 17 in a house of 117 members.
After this induction, there are now 17 ministers, including the chief minister, in the Cabinet, which can have 18 members.
Arora’s induction was the seventh expansion of the Mann Cabinet in just over three years. The last one took place in September last year when five -- Hardeep Singh Mundian, Barinder Kumar Goyal, Tarunpreet Singh Sond, Ravjot Singh and Mohinder Bhagat -- were inducted after dropping four ministers.
Then the dropped ministers were Balkaur Singh, Anmol Gagan Mann, Chetan Singh Jauramajra and Brahm Shankar Jhimpa.
Businessman-turned-politician Arora, who was a Rajya Sabha member for three years, won the Ludhiana (West) bypoll on June 23 by defeating his nearest rival by 10,637 votes.
He resigned from the Upper House of Parliament on Tuesday. His entry into the state Cabinet was certain as AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, while campaigning in Ludhiana, had announced that Arora would be made a minister if he was elected as a legislator.
Arora, a first-time MP, was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab on April 10, 2022, and his tenure was to end on April 9, 2028.
Speculations are rife over one minister being dropped. If this happens, the Cabinet will continue to have two vacant berths that are likely to be filled later this year.
Also, there is a probability of a rejig of the portfolios of ministers. The new portfolios will be announced after the oath-taking ceremony.
Sources said earlier the party was keen to fill all Cabinet berths, but with the by-election necessitated in Taran Tarn after the death of AAP lawmaker Kashmir Singh Sohal last week, the party decided to leave one Cabinet berth vacant so that the party can promise the electorates that if they elect the AAP candidate, their representative will be inducted into the Council of Ministers.
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