All of Bhagwant Mann’s men: These 5 aides and advisers hold the keys in Punjab’s new AAP govt

From bureaucracy and police to politics and even the media, these 5 men advise Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann day to day, and are part of his 'inner circle'.

From left: Sukhvir Singh, A. Venu Prasad, Gaurav Yadav, Manjit Sidhu and Rajbir Singh Ghuman

Chandigarh: The Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party administration in Punjab is just over a month old, but has already shown important differences in its style from its predecessors. In fact, Mann has also been accused of being run by remote control from Delhi, where his counterpart as CM is his party’s convener Arvind Kejriwal.

Mann has taken more than a leaf out of the Kejriwal playbook on matters of governance, and the Punjab CM is also depending on the Delhi CM for policy guidance, but he has also started building his own team.

A week after taking over the reins of the state, Mann carried out a bureaucratic reshuffle, involving two-dozen IAS and IPS officers, but there were no big-ticket appointments at the highest rungs of the administration.

He has, however, built a small team of bureaucrats in his CMO, and given key responsibilities to some of his old-time political associates.

ThePrint looks at Team Mann, as it stands.

A. Venu Prasad — the bureaucratic aide

On 11 March, a day after the AAP won the Punjab polls but five days ahead of Mann officially taking charge as state CM, news broke in the Secretariat about the first big appointment under the new government. It was of A. Venu Prasad, an IAS officer of the 1991 batch, as additional chief secretary attached to Mann’s office.

The official order regarding the posting, of course, came days after Mann took charge of the Chief Minister’s Office.

Prasad acts as a bureaucratic adviser to Mann. According to senior AAP leaders, Prasad was picked for his professional expertise in the areas of power, transport and taxation — all crucial to the AAP from the perspective of its promise of reforms.

Prasad’s academic experience is also believed to have played a role in him being talent-spotted. He has a Post-Graduate Diploma in soil science and two post-graduate degrees in public policy and agriculture, apart from an MBA in finance.

Gaurav Yadav — the police aide

Gaurav Yadav is special principal secretary to Mann. He is the CM’s main adviser on policing and law-and-order affairs. Yadav is crucial to the Mann administration because it is only in Punjab that an AAP government has jurisdiction over the police (since Delhi is a Union territory, the police comes under the central government).

Incidentally, Yadav and Kejriwal cleared the civil services exam in the same year, 1992. While Yadav went to the Indian Police Service, Kejriwal was appointed to the Indian Revenue Service, a job he eventually quit to get into full-time activism and later politics.

But there is no clear answer whether Yadav and Kejriwal share an equation, because party functionaries and government officials who are aware of this fact are very guarded about it.

Yadav, who belongs to Uttar Pradesh, is an additional DGP by rank, and was picked for his expertise in counter-insurgency and modernisation.

Rajbir Singh Ghuman — the trusted assistant

Personal secretary and officer on special duty (OSD) to the chief minister, 35-year-old Rajbir Singh Ghuman is a confidant of Bhagwant Mann. He came in touch with the CM during election campaigns ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

As Mann became a Lok Sabha MP from Sangrur in Punjab, Ghuman stayed with him. He guides him through his daily arrangements and happens to be one of his most trusted people.

Ghuman belongs to Gharachon village, which is around 40 km away from Mann’s village of Satoj. An engineer himself, Ghuman was also an assistant professor at a private engineering college in Sangrur before he joined Mann.

Sukhvir Singh — the political secretary

Mann’s other trusted aide is his second OSD, Sukhvir Singh. Thirty-four-year-old Singh is a good friend of Ghuman, and they hail from the same village. Singh also joined Mann around 2014, after being referred by Ghuman.

Unlike Ghuman, who is often seen beside Mann during rallies and official events, Singh, who is also an engineer by profession, is more of a behind-the-scenes man. Mann often calls Singh his “political secretary”. From regional to international affairs, Singh briefs Mann daily on important political developments and takes notes during all meetings.

Several senior AAP functionaries also call him Mann’s “political adviser”.

Manjit Sidhu — the media adviser

Mann, as a student at Shaheed Udham Singh Government College in Punjab’s Sunam, had established himself as a political satirist and in the early 1990s, so a large number of people in Punjab were already familiar with his audio cassettes. But before he performed on stage or went for recordings, Mann would often do a personal screening of his performance within his closest friend circle. Manjit Sidhu was part of that circle.

Forty-nine-year-old Sidhu, who is a resident of Mansa, has been with Mann as an adviser since he joined the AAP in 2014. For the longest time, Sidhu was the media adviser of the party’s Punjab unit. Currently, as the media adviser profile has been distributed among multiple wings, Sidhu heads a team that scans all news concerning the AAP, the Punjab government and Mann that appears in print media every day, and briefs Mann in the morning.

Party functionaries call him Mann’s “messenger”. He works closely with all the cabinet ministers, tracks the MLAs, briefs the spokespersons and often communicates to them the party line on major political issues.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)