Bhagwant Mann, actor,
comic and now the chief minister of Punjab, said Wednesday that a golden
chapter has started in the history of the state as he took oath at Khatkar
Kalan, the birthplace of Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh. “I’m not here to
diss anyone today. I am the Chief Minister of everyone in Punjab, even those
who did not vote for our party,” Mann said in his first speech as CM.

The 48-year-old is
the youngest chief minister Punjab has had since the 1970s. The Punjab
Assembly, in which 92 seats are occupied by AAP, can boast of a very young
House with a large number of MLAs in the 25 to 50 age-group, an otherwise
uncommon occurrence in India’s political dynamics.

Mann’s swearing-in
ceremony was attended by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal and other party leaders. The theme of the oath-taking ceremony
was “Rang De Basanti,” named after a song by another Indian revolutionary Ram
Prasad Bismil when Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged to death by
the British Indian government.

On Tuesday,
Bhagwant Mann had resigned from his position as a member of Parliament. After
his resignation. Mann said, “We know how to run an administration. I have been
a member of the (Lok Sabha) for seven years. People have re-elected our
government in Delhi. We have the experience.”

The Aam Aadmi
Party registered a resounding victory in the recently-concluded Punjab Assembly
elections winning 92 out of 117 seats. The Congress, which came to power in
2017 and then battled immense infighting within its ranks, could win only 18
seats.

On the same day
Bhagwant Mann took oath as the Punjab CM, Navjot Singh Sidhu resigned as the state Congress chief. Sidhu’s resignation came after Congress president asked
state chiefs of all five states where the Congress had lost to submit their
resignations. In his resignation letter, Sidhu wrote, “To the President All India Congress Committee. Respected Madam, I hereby resign as President PPCC.”