As Prime Minister Narendra Modi reconstituted the various cabinet committees, it further enhanced the stature of Home Minister Amit Shah within the government's decision-making mechanism. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is no longer a part of many cabinet committees, including key political affairs and parliamentary affairs, suggesting that political decisions will be now taken by the new home minister.
Singh is now part of two other important committees—the Cabinet Committee on Security and Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs—by virtue of being the defence minister. The key Cabinet Committee on Security has PM Modi in chair with Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs minister S. Jaishankar as the other four members. All main decisions related to the national security are taken by this powerful ministerial panel.
Among the eight committees, two will be headed by Home Minister Amit Shah and the rest by Prime Minister Modi. Shah will head Cabinet Committee on Accommodation and Parliamentary Affairs. The message filtering out of this exercise has put Shah in defacto number 2 position within the cabinet. In the cabinet's order of precedence, however, Rajnath Singh is listed as the senior minister after Modi.
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs—another key committee that approves all the big ticket schemes and projects—will be headed by PM Modi and will have Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Fertilizer minister D.V.Sadananda Gowda, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Food Processing Industries minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Minister of External Affairs Jaishankar, Railways and Commerce minister Piyush Goyal and Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan as its members.
The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs will have Shah as the head and Nirmala Sitharaman, Ramvilas Paswan, Narendra Singh Tomar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi, as its members.
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The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs will be headed by PM Modi with members including Shah, Gadkari, Sitharaman, Paswan, Tomar, Prasad, Badal, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Goyal, Arvind Ganpat Sawant and Prahlad Joshi.
Modi has also set up two more committees which were not there in his first tenure. These are Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth, and Employment and Skill Development. Setting up of these ministerial panels show that Modi government is laying emphasis on economic growth and job creation soon after it won a massive mandate. People in the rural areas and the youth have voted in favour of Modi, so government was keen to create an environment to help these key voters constituents.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet will have the prime minister and Home Affairs minister as its members. These will take decision on the appointments of senior bureaucrats and other officials of the central services, including personal secretaries of individual ministers.
The Cabinet Committee on Accommodation will have Shah, Transport minister Nitin Gadkari, Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal as its members. Jitendra Singh and Hardeep Puri will be the special invitees.
