On 2 Cabinet committees in first list, Rajnath Singh now put on 6

The second stint of the Narendra Modi government has started with a tug of war between its top leadership, particularly on whether Defence Minister Rajnath Singh or Home Minister Amit Shah would be the number two to the prime minister.

Singh is the number two in the order of precedence of the council of ministers, as he was during the previous government. Shah, who has made a debut in the Cabinet, is the number three in the order of precedence.

However, on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reconstituted eight Cabinet committees, with Shah being the only member of the Cabinet to be on each of these panels.

According to the initial list made public on Thursday morning, Singh was a member of only two committees; he in the previous government was on six Cabinet panels. This was interpreted as Shah being the de-facto number two in the current  government.

Shah, according to the initial list, headed two of these eight panels — the Cabinet committee on accommodation and more intriguingly, the cabinet committee on parliamentary affairs.

Singh, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, was kept out not just of the committee on parliamentary affairs, which he had headed during the previous Modi government, but also from the Cabinet committee on political affairs.

Singh was included only in two panels — the cabinet committee on security by virtue of his being the defence minister and the committee on economic affairs.

Shah had succeeded Singh as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014, and has now succeeded him as the home minister. During the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, the BJP spoke of Modi and Singh as its “jodi number one”, but Shah is now increasingly seen as number two to the PM. 

Sources said Singh was unhappy at the treatment meted out to him and conveyed as much to the leadership. At 10.19 pm on Thursday, the government released a revised list of members of the various committees.

Singh’s name was included in four more committees. According to the revised list, Singh is now a member of not just the committees on economic affairs and security, but also a member of the Cabinet committees on political affairs, parliamentary affairs, growth and investment, and employment and skill development. Singh, and not Shah, is now the head of the Cabinet committee on parliamentary affairs. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is a member of seven of the committees, barring the appointments committee, and replaces her mentor and predecessor Arun Jaitley in all these committees.

Under the Government of India’s transaction of business rules, 1961, the PM is empowered to set up and reconstitute cabinet committees. Currently, there are eight such committees. These are committees on economic affairs, parliamentary affairs, political affairs, security, investment and growth, employment and skill development, appointments and accommodation.

After the amended list, Shah now heads only one instead of two panels. He heads the committee on accommodation. The PM is not a member of either the committee on parliamentary affairs or accommodation.