According to The Tribune, Punjab Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal had been overseeing a non-existent department in the ministry for nearly 20 months. This was revealed through a gazette notification issued by the state's chief secretary.

As per the notification, “In partial modification of the previous Punjab government notification regarding the allocation of portfolios, among ministers, the department of administrative reforms earlier allotted to Dhaliwal is not in existence as on date.”

From now on, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal will serve only as the Minister for NRI Affairs in the Punjab cabinet. According to an official notification, the change in Dhaliwal’s portfolio was made on the orders of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and took effect on February 7, 2025.

Dhaliwal initially held the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare portfolio but was moved from the role during a cabinet reshuffle in May 2023. Following this, he was assigned to the Administrative Reforms department. Even after another cabinet reshuffle in September 2024, he retained the department, though it existed only on paper. According to unnamed sources cited by The Tribune, the department had no staff and never held meetings.

According to a source cited by The Indian Express, after Dhaliwal was assigned to the administrative reforms department, he sought clarification from the government since the department lacked a secretary.

Recently, Dhaliwal has also made headlines in his role as the minister of NRI affairs, overseeing the arrival of deportees from the U.S. in Amritsar.

Reacting to the Punjab government's admission, BJP leader Amit Malviya posted on X, “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.”

BJP's national spokesman Pradeep Bhandari also criticised the AAP-led government in Punjab, stating, "AAP has made Governance in Punjab a joke! The AAP Minister ran a department for 20 Months which never existed! Imagine, for 20 months, the CM did not even know that a minister was running a " NON EXISTENT DEPARTMENT."

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Bathinda MP and Shiromani Akali Dal leader responded to the news, conveying, “Governance AAP-Punjab style. Allocate non-existent departments to ministers who themselves are ignorant of the portfolios they hold. All this is happening because ministers have no role in governance as the government is being run in remote control from Delhi.”