Chandigarh, October 12
Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who has been suspended from the primary membership of the party today, will remain the state’s Finance Minister till he is formally divested of the charge by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Highly placed sources said the Chief Minister might take a decision in this regard after he was discharged from PGI tomorrow. The Chief Minister is in the hospital, recuperating from a rib fracture for the past few days.

Party sources said once suspended, the Finance Minister had only two options. The first was to resign voluntarily and if he did not do that, then the Chief Minister would remove him, as a suspended member of the party cannot hold any portfolio for the time that he remains suspended.

The suspension does not seem to have left him with too many options. While he can accept the humiliation, lie low and try and mend fences, the possibility appears unlikely given the high stakes and the background. He also has the option of resigning as Finance Minister, though he would continue to be an MLA. Conversely he can be dismissed as a minister by the Chief Minister, who also has the discretion of retaining him as minister but with a different portfolio.

Political circles are abuzz saying the portfolio of finance and planning held by Manpreet will temporarily be given to Education Minister Upinderjit Kaur, while the other department of Programme Implementation is likely to be retained by the Chief Minister himself.

Without wishing to be quoted, officials in the Chief Minister’s office said the Chief Minister was aware of all political developments that had taken place in the past few days. He had indicated that with regard to the recommendation of the disciplinary action committee, he would go by the party constitution that said once a person had been charged and found guilty of indiscipline, he could not remain in the party.

A meeting of senior SAD leadership that took place today decided that the recommendation of the disciplinary action committee to suspend Manpreet must be implemented immediately. They also felt that the Finance Minister had caused double embarrassment to the SAD, as he was opposing subsidies, while former Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had today come out openly in support of subsidies.

The suspension of Manpreet was announced after senior SAD leadership felt that he was going against the policies and programmes of the government, even though he was himself part of the manifesto committee that promised subsidies prior to the 2007 elections.

One of the first to react to the situation was Jassi Khangura, a Congress legislator from Qila Raipur, who said, “Whilst this is an internal matter of the Akali Dal and the Badal family, it should have been determined on the basis of facts prevailing as well as those to be presented. It is very unfortunate that instead of listening to their own Finance Minister, the SAD leadership has ganged up to gag and suspend Manpreet.”

Senior leaders of the party indicated that the suspension came with a clear message to Manpreet that if he wished to remain in the party, he should not embarrass the party further through any public statement.