Bhagwant Mann, Kejriwal set to sign pact to conjoin 18 govt depts.
In a shocking revelation, mass-circulation Punjabi newspaper, ‘Ajit’today claimed that the Bhagwant Singh Mann-led Punjab government and the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government are on the verge of signing an accord that will conjoin 18 departments of the two states which will then work in tandem with each other.

THE 8-PAGE PUNJAB-DELHI ACCORD IS LIKELY TO BE SIGNED by the two chief ministers, the news report said, and once it comes into effect, it will open floodgates for the Kejriwal regime to virtually run the entire Punjab administration from Delhi.

The accord, as reported by the newspaper, is akin to merging the key government departments of the two states.

The accord will allow the Delhi government and officials complete access to the entire data of Punjab’s Health, Education, Power, Water Supply, Sanitation, Environment, Pollution Control, Housing, Tourism, Hospitality, Urban Development, Social Security, Women and Child Development, Administrative Reforms, Old Age Pensions, Industrial Development and Investment, Fiscal Stability departments etc, the report revealed.

The draft explicitly states that these departments of the Punjab and Delhi governments will formulate joint development plans and will execute them jointly.

If such an official understanding comes to fruition, it will raise serious questions about the autonomy of Punjab.

The newspaper report said since the draft has still not been signed by either party, it
would refrain from authenticating it, but nevertheless published a huge picture of
the title page of the draft on its front page.

Punjab’s AAP government is already under a severe attack for sending its power
officials to Delhi and taking dictation from the Kejriwal government and its officials
as to how its pre-poll promise of 300 units of free power should be implemented in
the state.

Bhagwant Mann’s repeated visits to Delhi, ostensibly to study the so-called ‘Delhi
Model’ for one or the other problem, isn’t going down very well with the Punjabis.

For a party that came to power with a 92/117 majority, this routine of kowtowing is
going to cost AAP’s Punjab leadership dearly, particularly as its MLAs seem to have
little freedom to voice their opinions.

The Delhi-Punjab AAP Accord will allow Delhi govt and its officials complete access to entire data of Punjab’s top govt departments, including Health, Education, Power, Water Supply, Housing, Urban Development, etc.

AAP’s propaganda machine is now expected to first question the credibility of the
‘Ajit’ report, then slips into a denial mode and gradually shifts towards defending such an understanding between Punjab and Delhi governments. Very soon, its leaders would be calling it the best thing that happened to Punjab.

Political experts said the issue of autonomy is a hot button issue in Punjab and AAP’s
efforts to make the state government subservient to Kejriwal are likely to augur well
for the local leadership of the party which has to face the electorate. ‘Khudmukhtari’ is a key political value in Punjab, and Kejriwal could land in a mess by trying to become the Punjab chief minister by proxy, said a senior AAP leader on condition of anonymity, adding that such clever-by-half tactics would make Bhagwant Mann’s own standing very vulnerable. “Remember that Bhagwant Mann is the biggest asset AAP has in Punjab. Already, the party had put him in a tough spot where a new chief minister could not claim any credit for the five Rajya Sabha picks from Punjab and preferred to maintain a distance from these worthies. The ham-handed efforts to run Punjab from Delhi will backfire,” he said.

The optics of Punjab government officials routinely travelling to Delhi carrying
official files and bringing back solutions sanctified by Kejriwal is hardly good politics.

A formal understanding between the two governments is set to trigger demands
from within the cadre to come clean on who exactly is the chief minister of Punjab.