Captain Amarinder Singh will take oath as Punjab Chief Minister on Thursday. Singh, who led from the front to guide Congress to a stunning victory, will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister today for the second time. Singh will become the 26th Chief Minister of the state. Governor VP Singh Badnore will administer the oath of office and secrecy to Singh at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh. Navjot Sidhu, Manpreet Badal, Charanjit Channi are among the other Congress MLAs who would be taking oath as ministers today as well. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Party vice-president Rahul Gandhi are among those who will attend the ceremony.
The Congress had secured 77 out of 117 seats in the state Assembly polls making a strong comeback after a decade. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 20 seats on debut, making it the second largest party in the Punjab Assembly. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance fared the worst with 18 seats
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The ceremony will take place at Punjab Raj Bhavan at 10 am and the oath will be administered by Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore.
The state can have a maximum of 18 ministers. The Congress has 77 MLAs in the assembly.
“Besides Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and National Conference leaders Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will attend the swearing-in,” a Congress release said. Former Union Ministers P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Ashwani Kumar, Rajeev Shukla, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh will also be present. AICC general secretaries Ahmed Patel and Ambika Soni, besides secretary in-charge of Punjab affairs Asha Kumari are also expected to attend the event.
The ceremony will be a simple and low-key affair, with Amarinder deciding not to spend excessively on symbolism “on account of the poor financial health of the state”, it said. The Chief Minister designate has also appealed to all party MLAs and others not to indulge in excessive celebration and to keep the event austere so as not to further burden the “debt-ridden state exchequer”.
Singh said his government’s priority would be to bring the state’s economy, “which has been completely devastated under the SAD-BJP regime, back on the rails through every possible measure and innovative, out-of-the-box initiatives”. “We do not want to celebrate when the people of Punjab are suffering due to severe financial and other problems,” Singh said, adding that there will be time enough to celebrate once his government has brought the state back on the path of growth and development.
Having tasted electoral victory in Punjab after a gap of 10 years, Congress would like to give representation to various sections and also accommodate experienced leaders and youth in the cabinet. It remains to be seen who among the contenders for ministerial positions will be inducted.
(With agency inputs)