Four non-BJP CMs in Inter-State Council’s panel

Chief Ministers Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy and Amarinder Singh have been nominated to the 13-member Standing Committee of Inter-State Council (ISC), which will be headed by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The nominations to the Standing Committee came after the government reconstituted the ISC, which is mandated to investigate and advise on disputes between states, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chairman and six Union ministers and all chief ministers as members.

While Punjab’s Singh is the only Congress chief minister in the Standing Committee, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has not found space in the high-profile panel.

The Standing Committee headed by Shah will also have Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled Assam (Sarbanand Sonowal), Gujarat (Vijay Rupani), Maharasthra (Devendra Fadnavis) and Uttar Pradesh (Yogi Adityanath) as members.

Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat will also be members.

The Standing Committee will have continuous consultation and process matters for consideration of the Council and process all matters pertaining to Centre-State Relations before they are taken up for consideration in the Inter-State Council. It will also monitor the implementation of decisions taken on the recommendations of the Council.

In the Modi-led ISC, Shah, Sitharaman, Rajnath Singh (Defence), Tomar, Gehlot and Hardeep Singh Puri are members.

CMs of all states and Union Territories having legislative assemblies and administrators of the Union territories not having a legislative assembly will also be members of the council.