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Sewa Singh Sekhwan Is Newest
Face To Join Badal's Cabinet
WSN
Network
 CHANDIGARH:
Rewarding loyalty to his family once again, Punjab Chief Minister
Parkash Singh Badal on Monday expanded his cabinet by inducting
Akali Dal leader Sewa Singh Sekhwan as a cabinet minister and thus
filling the last slot available in the cabinet.
Indian
Constitution bars any state to have more than 15 per cent of
legislators as Ministers. Punjab has 117 MLAs.
Sekhwan was
elected MLA from the Kahnuwan assembly seat in Gurdaspur district in
August this year in a by-election after the seat fell vacant when
Pratap Singh Bajwa of Congress was elected to the Lok Sabha from
Gurdaspur. His brother Fateh Jung Bajwa contested on Congress ticket
but lost to Sekhwan.
For Sekhwan,
this will be the second stint in the Cabinet. He had been a minister
in the previous Badal government (1997-2002) as well. Sekhwan has
been given the portfolios of Information and Public Relations and
NRI Affairs.
Interestingly,
Sekhwan's new found clout started showing results even before he was
sworn in. BJP leader Swaran Salaria who owns a chopper landed his
machine right in the middle of village Sekhwan this morning and took
off with Sewa Singh for Chandigarh, a fact that did much to tell the
voters of Kahnuwan that their man indeed has become important. "It
is for the first time that a minister will be going by helicopter
from his village to Chandigarh to be sworn in," an excited sidekick
of Sekhwan was seen telling a staff reporter of Ajit newspaper on
Sunday, a fact that the reporter dutifully reported in Monday's
newspaper. Sekhwan's wife Amarjit Kaur Sekhwan, an SGPC member, also
accompanied the MLA to watch the ceremony.
Punjab has no
minister of state or junior minister and Badal has made everyone a
Cabinet minister.
Death of Akali
Dal general secretary and Cooperatives Minister Kanwaljit Singh had
left a slot on the Cabinet. His son had pushed hard for a
ministership but has become a fringe force since then. There were
not many claimants and the issue of who should be inducted as a
minister was not preceded by any public debate.
Most
ministerships in Punjab are decided in any Akali regime on the basis
of loyalty to the Badal family, a fact now hardly concealed by
anyone, including the Badals.
Meanwhile, Sohan
Singh Thandal has been made a chief parliamentary secretary and
attached to Agriculture Minister Sucha Singh Langah.
28
October 2009
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