The Centre on Thursday approved an amendment to the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act, 1951 to remove Congress president as one of the trustees of the memorial.
The Union Cabinet at its meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave nod to the proposed amendment to the Act which stipulates that the Leader of Opposition “recognised as such” in the House of the People or where there is no such Leader of Opposition then the leader of the single largest Opposition party in the House will be one of the trustees.
“In the existing Act, there is a provision for representation of a single national political party. Deletion of the party-specific member from the trust will make it apolitical,” the government said in a statement after the Cabinet meeting.
The proposed amendment “ensures” representation of the Opposition party in the trust, the government said.
“The proposed amendment will empower the government to terminate and replace a trustee to participate in functioning of the trust or for any other reason,” it also said, citing “benefits”of the proposed changes in the Act.
At present, the Act stipulates that the “president of the Indian National Congress” will be one of the trustees in the Jallianwala Memorial Trust headed by the prime minister.
Other trustees include, the culture minister, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Governor of Punjab, chief minister of Punjab and three eminent persons nominated by the Central government.
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