By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-05-24 10:57:00
The Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab has walked the talk. In a laudable move,
chief minister Bhagwant Mann dismissed health minister Vijay Singla after receiving "solid evidence" of corruption against him. Singla was later arrested by the
state Anti-Corruption Bureau as the chief minister had recommended filing a
corruption case against him.
It has been
reported that the Punjab government was provided evidence that Singla was
demanded one percent cut for granting tenders in his department. The chief
minister acted against him and said that â"even one percent corruption will not
be tolerated". The decision just two months after assuming office shows that the
government has kept watch from top down since the day it took over.
Mann has
acted in a manner similar to his party chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind
Kejriwal who had dismissed food and environment minister Asim Ahmed Khan in
2015 in Delhi on charges of corruption. The AAP party has always adopted a high
moral ground on corruption and had even used it as a major plank to contest the
Punjab elections. With his action, Mann has proved that the party will not
shirk from taking action against its own leaders even if they are ministers.
This one
act of the chief minister, a rare instance of a chief minister acting against
his cabinet colleague, is going to shake up the political, bureaucratic and
police set up in the state as well as make government contractors responsible. Corruption
is endemic in Punjab, as it is in most states in India. But it hurts Punjab
more as the state is in a precarious financial position. If the arrest of
Singla acts to smash the politician-bureaucrat-government contractor nexus, it
will also ensure that the leakage in revenue is stopped and Punjab becomes
better off in the coming days.