File Photo: Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reconstituted a government committee for the commemoration of the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru which will be headed by him, replacing his predecessor Manmohan Singh.
However, it includes some Congress leaders -- Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Karan Singh.
The first meeting of the National Committee to Commemorate 125th Birth Anniversary of India's first Prime Minister will be held soon after Diwali, a PMO statement said.
Jawaharlal Nehru's 125th birth anniversary falls on November 14 this year.
The reconstituted committee has Mr Modi as it's chairman while Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar and Culture Minister Sripad Yesso Naik will be its ex-officio members.
Mr Azad, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, and Mr Kharge, Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, will be members, along with Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav, former Sikkim Governor B P Singh, former Foreign Secretary M K Rasgotra and former Lok Sabha Secretary General Subhash Kashyap.
Senior Congress leader Karan Singh and Suman Dubey are also members of the committee along with former Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra.
Senior journalists Rajat Sharma, Swapan Dasgupta and MJ Akbar have also been made its members.
The Committee was set up during the previous United Progressive Alliance or UPA government and was headed by Manmohan Singh.
Its members were Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the then Defence Minister A K Antony, the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, the then Law Minister Kapil Sibal besides a
number of scholars and academicians from various Institutions.