NEW DELHI: Agrarian distress may have downed BJP’s prospects in Hindi heartland, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to find a replacement for former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to head a panel to clear the blueprint for convergence of flagship rural employment scheme with agriculture.
While Modi had constituted a chief ministers’ panel headed by Chouhan during the Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog in July with three months’ mandate, the think-tank panel still awaits the CMs to meet for one last time to approve the report already prepared. “There’re six other chief ministers in the panel, including Yogi Adityanath and Nitish Kumar of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively. Prime Minister can appoint any of them to replace Chouhan who has since demitted office after loss in the Assembly elections,” sources in the NITI Aayog said.
Incidentally, the agrarian distress is being ticked off as a key reason for the BJP routs in Madhya Pradesh, Chhatishgarh, and Rajasthan. “Agrarian distress is a reality, and it’s not going to go away sooner. The rural income squeeze isn’t just a politically sensitive issue, but an economic impediment for the growth of the country. On the directions of the CMs’ panel, NITI Aayog has put together a report which seeks to address the issue of input cost be leveraging on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS),” said a senior NITI Aayog official.
The CMs’ panel was expected to meet in the last week of August. “First, the concluding meeting couldn’t take place, because Chouhan had been busy electioneering. Now, he no more holds the office of the chief minister. The NITI Aayog cannot directly submit the report to the PMO since its mandate was only to assist the chief ministers,” added the official.