Gopi Chand Bhargava was a doctor who became the first Chief Minister of East Punjab in 1947, taking office as four and a half million refugees arrived in a province that had lost its capital, its records and half its territory.
The government operated first from Shimla and then from Jalandhar, before Chandigarh was built.
The tasks of those two years were the reception and resettlement of the refugees, the land resettlement scheme designed by Tarlok Singh, the reconstruction of an administration from an office that had been split in Lahore, and the maintenance of order.
It is generally regarded as having worked, which given the circumstances is remarkable and is almost never remarked on.
He was Chief Minister three times, in 1947, 1949 and 1964.
The administrative history of East Punjab between 1947 and 1952 has not been written, and the people who could have written it are gone.
He was the first chief minister of East Punjab and held the office three times, through the resettlement period when the state's whole administration had to be rebuilt.
The problem he inherited was placing several million people on land vacated by several million others. The allotment system built for it, with its graded cuts, is one of the largest land transfers ever administered anywhere.
The temporary capital was at Simla and then Jalandhar until Chandigarh was ready. Almost nothing has been written about how the administration of those years actually worked.