New Delhi: The Union government’s eight cabinet committees were reconstituted today (July 3). New entrants include ministers from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)), which won the elections as part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Cabinet committees are apex political decision-making bodies in the Union government.
The key cabinet committee on security, which generally comprises the Union home, defence, finance and external affairs ministers, remains unchanged.
Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman and S. Jaishankar retained their respective portfolios last month as the government chose to prioritise continuity after the general election.
Also unchanged is the cabinet’s appointment committee, which continues to comprise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Shah.
New members in the cabinet committee on economic affairs are Janata Dal (Secular) scion and former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who heads the steel and heavy industries portfolios; former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who heads the agriculture and rural development portfolios; and Lalan Singh of the of the JD(U), who is the panchayati raj minister as well as the fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying minister.
Civil aviation minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu of the TDP as well as Lalan Singh are the non-BJP members of the cabinet committee on parliamentary affairs. Naidu is also in the cabinet committee on political affairs.
BJP president J.P. Nadda, whose term is to expire soon and who was newly inducted into the cabinet, is in the cabinet committees for parliamentary affairs and political affairs respectively.
Former Haryana chief minister and now Union housing minister Manohar Lal Khattar replaces petroleum minister Hardeep Puri in the cabinet committee on accommodation.
Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal find themselves in the cabinet committee on investment and growth and as a special invitee to the cabinet committee on skill, employment and livelihood respectively.
Those who are not cabinet ministers are sometimes inducted into these committees as special invitees.
Former Bihar chief minister and current MSME Union minister Jitam Ram Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha is a new addition to the cabinet committee on political affairs. Prataprao Jadhav of the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena is a special invitee to the cabinet committee on investment and growth.
