Days after the Aam Aadmi Party emerged victorious in Punjab polls, party leader and state’s chief minister-designate Bhagwant Mann will take oath on March 16.
Mann will be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Punjab at Khatkar Kalan in Nawanshahr district, the ancestral village of iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. However, a total of 16 MLAs will take oath as ministers on a later date.
Mann met Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Saturday to stake claim to form the new government in the state, a day after the 48-year-old was elected as the AAP’s legislature party leader at a meeting of the party MLAs in Mohali.
“We invite the people of Punjab (for the ceremony). Every Punjabi will take oath on that day…we will vow to sacrifice everything for the progress of Punjab…We will pay tributes to Bhagat Singh,” he told reporters outside the Raj Bhawan after meeting the governor.
Responding to a question on the cabinet formation, Mann said, “The cabinet will be good. Historic decisions will be taken.”
The AAP registered a landslide victory by winning 92 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly, up from 20 in 2017. It defeated the state’s ruling Congress, the BJP and the SAD-BSP combine and its candidates outperformed several stalwarts, including the outgoing chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal and former chief minister Amarinder Singh.
Reacting to the AAP’s emphatic poll victory, Mann earlier said, “The people defeated arrogant persons and they made the common people victorious.”
Mann, 48, won from the Dhuri Assembly seat by a margin of over 58,000 votes.
Earlier today, Mann and AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took part in a road show in Amritsar to celebrate the party’s resounding victory in the polls and thank voters.
