Seven new faces in Punjab Cabinet; 'sacked' Rana Gurjit Singh back

Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Sunday expanded his cabinet by inducting 15 ministers. This makes the cabinet reach its maximum permissible strength as Channi already has two deputy chief ministers. While seven new faces have made it to the cabinet, eight of the previous Amarinder Singh ministry have been retained and five former ministers have been dropped. The new cabinet has two women ministers.

Rana Gurjit Singh, the former irrigation minister dropped by then chief minister Amarinder Singh over allegations of corruption, has made it back to the cabinet despite seven Congress MLAs sending PCC chief Navjyot Singh Sidhu their written opposition to his reinduction. However, their opposition succeeded in rolling back the plan to make PCC working president Kuljit Nagra a minister. While the cabinet expansion took care to give sizable representation to the Jat Sikh community, with the gainers and losers now visible, the Congress circles are anxious about its impact on the factional fault line.