Punjab Cabinet reshuffle in offing with minister submitting resignation
Darpan News Desk IANS, 30 May, 2023 10:43 AM
Chandigarh, May 30 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday forwaded the resignation of Local Government Minister Inderbir Singh Nijjer from the Council of Ministers to Governor Banwari Lal Purohit for early acceptance.
Disclosing this here, a spokesperson for the Chief Minister's Office said that in a communique to the Governor, Mann has impressed upon him to accept the resignation of Nijjer, who has resigned from the Cabinet on personal grounds.
The Chief Minister has also proposed the names of Kartarpur MLA Balkar Singh and Lambi MLA Gurmeet Singh Khudian for their induction as Cabinet ministers.
Mann has requested the Governor to accord approval to administer oath of office to the new ministers at 11 a.m. on May 31 at the Punjab Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh.
Two Covid-19-related deaths have also been reported in the same time span. The positivity rate of the city has risen to 13.79 per cent. The number of active cases stands at 806 out of which 452 patients are being treated in home isolation.
Lakhimpur Kheri Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Santosh Gupta, said that one staff member was also found Covid-positive during a contact tracing exercise on Sunday after which the entire campus has been turned into a quarantine centre by the Health department. This is the highest number of new Covid cases reported in a district in a day this year.
During thorough search of the area on Monday, BSF troops recovered six packets, containing 6.27 kg heroin, inside a bag lying in the fields near the village. A motorcycle was also found nearby.
According to the police, a 67-year-old man had filed a complaint with the cyber police station in Shahdara district wherein he alleged that on March 18, he had received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number in which a girl was performing some obscene act.
The accused -- 19-year-old Rohit Kumar and 26-year-old Kamal -- are residents of Sitapur. During interrogation, Rohit told police that the truck driver Harpinder, 60, originally from Faridkot district, tried to harass him sexually under the influence of alcohol.
XBB 1.16 was first found in January. However, while only two samples were found then, the number rose to 138 in February, and in March till date total 204 samples of this variant have been found through genome sequencing. The highest number of cases of this variant have been found in Maharashtra at 105, followed by Telangana 93, Karnataka 57 and Gujarat 54 as per the data.
