Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann: A CM without authority!

Chandigarh: Four months have passed since the formation of the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, but till now Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is a CM without any real authority. He is the Chief Minister but it seems that no one is taking him seriously. He is believed to be the rubber stamp of party supremo Arvind Kejriwal. He has also lowered his status by appearing in the Delhi Durbar and hanging on the gate of the car with his bodyguards in Kejriwal’s road show. There is also a message in the administration of Punjab that all major decisions have to be taken with the consent of the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha.

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party lost in the byelection to the Sangrur seat won by Bhagwant Mann. There are two types of discussions about this. One is that Mann is weak, but the second discussion is that Mann wanted his sister to contest on his traditional seat, for which Kejriwal was not ready. Gurmail Singh was given the ticket instead of his sister, for whom Mann did not insist. However, whatever be the reason, Mann’s ‘authority’ is no where to be seen on ground. An example of this was seen on June 16, when the Mann administration transferred 216 tehsildars and naib tehsildars of the state, but most of them neither gave up their charge nor took charge of the new place. When the complaint was received, a separate letter was sent to the collectors of all the districts asking Tehsildars and Naib Tehsildars to vacate the office and send them to another place.