Punjab Ministers walk out of Cabinet meeting in protest over ‘attitude’ of a senior bureaucrat
Chandigarh, May 9, 2020: Miffed over alleged overbearing attitude of the state chief secretary, the Punjab ministers, in an unprecedented move, left the Cabinet meeting. The Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh was yet to arrive for the meeting when this happened.
Reacting to the step taken by the ministers, the Congress MP from Ludhiana, Ravneet Singh Bittu, in a tweet, disapproved the manner in which they left the “pre-Cabinet” meeting.
Sources told babushahi.com that Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal was the first to leave and other ministers present followed him one by one.
Though the chief secretary Karan Avtar Singh felt sorry but the ministers did not relent. The Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh was yet to arrive for the meeting when this unsavoury development took place.
The meeting was convened at Punjab Bahwan here to deliberate over amendments in the state excise policy. The problem arose when the chief secretary started to address them through video-conferencing even as the ministers were physically present there.
Sources said Jail and Cooperation Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was first to raise objection to this. He was of the view that why can’t chief secretary be physically present at the meeting when the ministers can. The chief secretary then arrived at the venue for the meeting.
The flashpoint came when the chief secretary is said to have reacted in an unpleasant manner to some point raised by the Technical Education minister Charanjit Singh Channi during the course of deliberations of the policy’s amendment proposal. At this point, Badal supported Channi and heated exchanges followed.
Unhappy over the behavior of the chief secretary, the ministers including their senior most colleague Brahm Mohindra left the meeting alleging they would not tolerate humiliation at the hands of bureaucrats. Cabinet minister Razia Sultana, Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Sunder Shan Arora were not present in the meeting.
One minister, on condition of anonymity, told that during the Cabinet meeting yesterday, they were provided copy of the policy with proposed amendments via WhatsApp during the meeting itself. They had also objected to this as how could they participate in deliberations without getting sufficient time to read it thoroughly.
To this, the CM had postponed the deliberations today. He had suggested that the senior officers and minister should first sit together and he would join the meeting later. But it did not happen like this. It is not the first time that the chief secretary behaved like this as some ministers alleged he does not even respond to their phone calls.
Afterwards, a government spokesperson announced that the discussion over the policy would now be held in the meeting on Monday.