Centre forms jumbo 70-member panel to commemorate 400th anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Oct 24

The Centre on Saturday announced forming a mammoth 70-member committee under the chairmanship of Prime Narendra Modi to commemorate the 400th Prakash Purab celebrations of ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, on the lines of the 550th Prakash Purab celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev.

The committee, which comprises several of the Union Ministers, Chief Ministers and senior bureaucrats, also has former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal as its members. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh are also part of the panel.

As per the notification issued by the Internal Security division of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) the mandate of the committee will be “to approve policies, plans and programmes and also to supervise and guide the commemoration of the 400th Birth Anniversary of Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji”.

It is also mandated to decide “broad dates for detailed programmes of celebration”. 

The notification further said, the implementation of the recommendations of the Committee “will be supervised by the Executive Committee”.

It is to be noted here that earlier this year Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to constitute a national-level committee to oversee the year-long 400th Prakash Purab celebrations of Guru Tegh Bahadur.

The prominent among the nine Union Ministers to be members of the committee include Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Hardeep Singh Puri and Prakash Javadekar.  

MPs in both the Houses of Parliament from Punjab, including Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (RS), Shwait Malik (RS), Sukhbir Singh Badal (LS) and Sunny Deol (LS), are also members of the panel.

Two Lok Sabha MPs from West Bengal SS Ahluwalia and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also Congress’ floor leader in the House, are given place in the committee. Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher is also part of it.     

Chief Ministers of 11 states, including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Odisha Tamil Nadu, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, are members of the panel, as LG of Delhi Anil Baijal and Jammu & Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha have also been roped in the committee.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.