Punjab health minister Vijay Singla was sacked over corruption charges in a decision announced by chief minister Bhagwant Mann during a webcast two months after the AAP had stormed to power in the state. Singla was arrested shortly afterwards.

Mann said in the online address: “A case was brought to my notice that a minister in my cabinet was seeking 1 per cent commission for tenders and purchases of his department. Only I knew about it. Neither the media nor the Opposition knew about the case. Had I wanted, I could have covered it up. Had I done so, I would have broken the hearts of crores of Punjabis who have trusted us. It is against the party’s ideology as well…. When I showed him (Singla) the proof he accepted his crime.”

Singla was later arrested and taken to a police station in Mohali.

In 2015, within eight months of coming to power in Delhi on the back of a movement against purported corruption, AAP chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had publicly announced the dismissal of a minister who had been accused of graft.

Then food and civil supplies minister Asim Ahmed Khan, whose sacking Kejriwal had announced at a media conference, was later made chairman of the Delhi government’s Haj committee in 2019 after the CBI failed to find evidence against him. However, his seat of Matia Mahal was given to his rival Shoaib Iqbal, who had defected from the Congress before the 2020 polls.

Pointing out that his party leader Kejriwal had removed Khan merely on the basis of an audio clip indicating bribery, Mann said on Tuesday: “Some Opposition leaders may say that the Bhagwant Mann government’s minister was removed on corruption charges within two months. I tell them that I am the one taking action against him.”

Kejriwal had sacked two other ministers — Jitender Singh Tomar, for faking his law degree, and Sandeep Kumar, for alleged sexual misconduct — within one-and-a-half years of coming to power. Tomar is still with the AAP and his wife is an MLA, while Kumar was disqualified as an MLA in 2019 for defecting to the BSP.

AAP’s national convener Kejriwal said in a webcast on Tuesday: “We can tolerate anything but not corruption; the Aam Aadmi Party is committed to honesty. I am proud of Bhagwant Mann, we will not let anyone betray Bharat Mata…. People often say that some amount of corruption is necessary to run a political party and a government. The Aam Aadmi Party has proven otherwise — that a party and government can operate effectively without resorting to such petty measures and plundering.”

Singla, a dentist from Mansa, had defeated Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu Moosewala of the Congress and had had a meteoric rise in the AAP with his induction into the cabinet with a key portfolio.