In a bizarre political development within days after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) poll defeat in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2025, senior party leader and Punjab Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has been found running a department that never existed for 21 months. 

This came into light after a gazette notification was issued by the chief secretary of the state saying that the department allotted to Dhaliwal was “not in existence”. The opposition BJP missed no opportunity to take a jibe at the AAP government in Punjab and sarcastically termed the move a “Kejriwal Model”.

“In partial modification of the previous Punjab Government notification No 2/1/2022-2Cabinet/2230 dated 23.09.2024, regarding the allocation of portfolios, among ministers, the Department of Administrative Reforms earlier allotted to Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal is not in existence as on date. Therefore, on the advice of the Chief Minister, the Governor of Punjab is pleased to make the amendment wef 07-02-2025,” the notification read.

With this amendment, Dhaliwal is now left with only the NRI Affairs department. The amendment was done on February 7 on the order of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwat Mann. Dhaliwal had earlier been stripped of the Agriculture and Rural Development departments in May 2023 and was instead given Administrative Reforms Department.

Dhaliwal, the fifth senior-most minister in the Punjab Cabinet after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, New and Renewable Energy Minister Aman Arora, and Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Dr Baljit Kaur, was recently in the news for handling US deportees landing in Amritsar as the Minister for NRI Affairs.

Taking to the social media platform BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya said, “You can imagine the crisis in Punjab government if it took nearly 20 months to realise that a department assigned to one of its prominent ministers never actually existed. Arvind Kejriwal is a charlatan who must be banished from public life.

Expressing his views on the matter, Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said, “I am surprised, the ministry that was given to Dhaliwal, doesn’t even exist...why didn’t he resign then? This is a very serious issue...how are they (AAP) even running the govt?”