Chandigarh. In Punjab, out of 11 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ministers, seven are facing criminal cases, four of whom are facing serious charges, while two of them are doctors and two are lawyers. This information came from an analysis conducted by an election rights group.
Punjab Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analyzed the affidavits of all 11 ministers, including Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
According to the ADR, seven ministers (64 per cent) had declared criminal cases against them. Four of them (36%) have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
Nine ministers are crorepatis, each with an average asset of Rs 2.87 crore and an equal number of them with liabilities.
The richest among them is Bram Shankar, 12th pass out of Hoshiarpur, who has assets of Rs 8.56 crore, while Lal Chand Kataruchak, 51, a matric pass from Bhoa (reserved constituency), has declared the least assets of Rs 6.19 lakh.
Before joining AAP, Kataruchak was a member of the Revolutionary Marxist Party of India.
Another matriculation pass out, 60-year-old Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, who has been allotted the portfolios of Rural Development and Panchayats, Animal Husbandry and NRI Affairs, had Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) roots.
Meanwhile, the 56-year-old Congress rebel and four-time municipal councillor, who has been given the Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management portfolio, has the highest liability of Rs 1.08 crore.
The ADR said five ministers (45 per cent) have declared their educational qualifications to be below class 12, while the rest are graduates or above.
Two of them are doctors by profession – Dr Baljit Kaur, who did MS (Ophthalmology) from Baba Farid University of Health Science in 2010, and Dr Vijay Singla, who graduated in Dental Surgery from Punjabi University in Patiala in 1992.
Singla has been assigned the portfolios of Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education and Research, while Kaur is the Minister of Women and Child Development.
Chief Minister Mann did B.Com (I) from Shaheed Udham Singh Government College in Sunam in 1992.
Gurmeet Singh Meet Hare, an engineer by profession, did his B.Tech in 2012 from the Swami Vivekananda Institute of Engineering and Technology, Punjab Technical University.
Haier, who became an MLA for the second time, has been allotted the departments of School Education, Sports and Youth Services and Higher Education.
Harjot Singh Bains, minister of Harpal Singh Cheema, has legal qualifications.
Cheema, 48, a two-time MLA from Dirba, graduated in law from Punjabi University, Patiala in 1998, while Bains did his B.A. He has done LLB (Hons) from Panjab University in Chandigarh and International Human Rights Law from London School of Economics.
—AnyTV News
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