In a fresh political development within days after the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) poll defeat in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2025, the AAP-led Punjab government scrapped the so-called Department of Administrative Reforms spearheaded by state Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, which was "not in existence" for 20 months.
The opposition BJP missed no opportunity to take a jibe at the AAP government in Punjab and sarcastically termed the move a "Kejriwal Model".
A gazette notification, issued by the Punjab Chief Secretary on Friday, said the decision to scrap the department came on the advice of Chief Minister Mann.
"The Department of Administrative Reforms earlier allotted to Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Cabinet Minister, is not in existence as on date," the notification read, as per India Today.
Citing sources, India Today reported that the AAP government was left red-faced after realising that the department did not exist despite Dhaliwal being allocated to head it.
Punjab Cabinet Rejig
Scrapping of the department came as a part of the CM Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government's major administrative rejig which also included the transfer of 21 IPS officers.
The last time the Punjab cabinet reshuffle took place was in September 2024 when CM Mann inducted five new ministers and dropped four. The state cabinet has a total of 16 ministers, including the Chief Minister.
BJP, Cong Mock AAP
Commenting on the development, a senior advisor to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcast, Kanchan Gupta posted on X, "Punjab had a Minister for Administrative Reforms but no Ministry of Administrative Reforms. AAP government headed by CM Bhagwant Mann was blissfully unaware of this till it erased the tag of Minister for Administrative Reforms. This is Kejriwal Model."
Moreover, BJP's IT Cell head Amit Malviya also slammed AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal "a charlatan who must be banished from public life".
"You can imagine the crisis in Punjab government if it took nearly 20 months to realise that a department assigned to one of its prominent ministers never actually existed," he tweeted.
Expressing his views on the matter, Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring told ANI, "I am surprised, the ministry that was given to Dhaliwal, doesn't even exist...why didn't he resign then? This is a very serious issue...how are they (AAP) even running the govt?"
Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal said things like this were happening in Punjab as it was being run by a "remote control in Delhi".
