After being left out of key Cabinet committees, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s name has been added in four new key committees, including Political Affairs. He is now in total six Cabinet committees.
His name has been added in Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Political Affairs, Investment and Growth, and Employment and Skill Development. Initially, he was a part of Cabinet Committee on Security and Economic Affairs.
The Central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reconstituted eight Cabinet committees on Thursday, 6 June, which are:
- Appointments Committee
- Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs
- Cabinet Committee on Accommodation
- Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs
- Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs
- Cabinet Committee on Security
- Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth
- Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development
The New Compositions
PM Modi is part of six of the eight re-constituted committees, except the Cabinet Committees on Accommodation and Parliamentary Affairs. Home Minister Amit Shah is part of all eight committees, according to a Cabinet secretariat press release.
The Cabinet Committee on Accommodation also has Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.
Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (MoS) in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, will be special invitees to the committee.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, another key committee, will be headed by the prime minister and will include the following ministers: Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal, Nitin Jairam Gadkari, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal, External Affairs Minister Subrahamanayam Jaishankar and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs now includes Shah, Sitharaman, Tomar, RS Prasad, Minister of Consumer Affairs Ramvilas Paswan, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi.
Ministers of State, Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan are special invitees to the committee.
Post reconstitution, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs includes PM Modi, Shah, Gadkari, Sitharaman, Paswan, Tomar, Prasad, Harsimrat Badal, Prahlad Joshi, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise Arvind Ganpat Savant.
The Cabinet Committee on Security now includes the Prime Minister along with Rajnath Singh, Shah, Sitharaman and S Jaishankar.
PM Modi is also a part of the Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth, the other members of which are Shah, Gadkari, Sitharaman and Goyal.
The Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development was reconstituted to include Modi, Shah, Sitharaman, Tomar, Pradhan, Goyal, Minister of Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal, Minister of Skill Development & Enterpreneurship Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, MoS (Independent Charge) Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar and Hardeep Singh Puri.
Nitin Gadkari, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Smriti Irani, Minister of Women & Child Development, and Prahlad Patel, MoS (I/C) Culture, will be special invitees to the committee.
The Cabinet of the newly-elected NDA government took oath on 30 May and the portfolios were announced the next day.
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