Chandigarh, June 26
After Minister, all other political appointees such as chairpersons of various boards, corporations and other organisations including Municipal Corporations have also submitted their resignations to the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh. However, whether these resignations have been accepted by the CM or not, it is not clear yet.
This has been done to give a free hand to the Chief Minister to reorganise and restructure the political administrative machinery in the state. The Chief Minister is scheduled to reconstitute his Council of Ministers in the first week of July to meet the legal requirements. He is to reduce the number of Ministers to 17 from the existing 25. Those Ministers, who will be dropped from the Council, will be accommodated elsewhere. This assurance has been given by the Chief Minister to all concerned.
It is obvious that the dropped Ministers will be made Chairpersons of important boards and corporations such as Punjab Mandi Board, Pepsu Road Transport Corporation, Punjab Warehousing Corporation, Markfed, Punsup, Punjab State Electricity Board etc. At present most of these organisations are headed by non MLAs.
Meanwhile, intense lobbying has started for retaining the berth in the Council of Ministers. Most of the MLAs and Ministers have rushed to Delhi to lobby at the high command level. The high command will play a crucial role in the reconstitution of the Council of Ministers in Punjab because there is factionalism in the ruling party in Punjab.
The Chief Minister has also left for Delhi to hold consultations with the party high command.
