As Indian PM Modi rejigs cabinet committees, Amit Shah gets seat in all 8

NEW DELHI, Jun 7, 2019, India Today. The Modi government on Thursday announced constitution of eight Cabinet committees. Home Minister Amit Shah has been made a part of all the panels including one that clears all appointments, reported the India Today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi head the committees except the one on Parliamentary Affairs, which will be lead by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Rajnath Singh’s name did not figure in some of the committees earlier. The government later amended the list and put up it on the Cabinet Secretariat website.

While the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has only Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah in it, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) has PM Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, besides Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi, besides Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Arvind Ganpat Sawant are also part of the panel, that takes all key decisions.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), headed by PM Narendra Modi, has Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Nirmala Sitharaman as its members. The panel looks after issues related to national security and foreign affairs.

Amit Shah will head the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal are its members.

Minister of State in PMO Jitendra Singh and Housing and Urban Affairs and Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri are special invitees of the accommodation committee.

The key Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will have Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Harsimrat Kaur Badal among its members.

The others in the CCEA include S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, which recommends dates for holding parliament sessions, will be headed by Rajnath Singh and will have Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ram Vilas Paswan, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi as its members.

Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan are special invitees.

Amit Shah was to head the committee according to a government order earlier, which has since been amended.

The cabinet committees are constituted or reconstituted when a new government takes over or the cabinet undergoes a reshuffle.

On Wednesday, the government had constituted committees on investment and growth to spur the economic growth, and on employment and skill development to deal with the issues of unemployment.

It was perhaps for the first time that the cabinet committees on the two issues were set up.

The previous UPA Government had 12 Cabinet Committees, including one on investment. The Prime Minister used to head 10, while two Committees the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation and Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs had the Defense Minister as the Chairperson.

When Modi government had comr to power in 2014, it had discontinued four Cabinet Committees, including the one on prices, UIDAI and WTO and clubbed them with Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs.

(With inputs from PTI, Himanshu Mishra)