New Delhi: The Centre has decided to appoint economist and BJP MLA Ashok Kumar Lahiri as vice-chairman and scientist Gobardhan Das as member of the federal think-tank Niti Aayog—a move timed just days before the second and final phase of West Bengal assembly elections on 29 April.
No formal appointment orders have been issued yet, but a top government official confirmed to ThePrint that Lahiri, the sitting BJP MLA from West Bengal’s Balurghat, will replace incumbent vice-chairman Suman Berry, who completes four years in the role on 1 May. Das, who contested on a BJP ticket in the 2021 state elections, will be nominated as a member.
The timing of the disclosure—not the appointments themselves—drew scrutiny.
A secretary-level central government official, who did not wish to be named, questioned the decision to surface the information before formal orders were ready. “Why the hurry to leak the information to the media so late at night? Surely, the government could have waited till the formal orders are out,” the official said.
The appointments come as West Bengal heads towards a tight finish, with the Trinamool Congress government of Mamata Banerjee and the BJP locked in a fierce battle for the state.
The first phase of polling, held on 23 April, recorded a voter turnout of 92 percent. Both Balurghat and Purbasthali Uttar—the constituencies associated with Lahiri and Das—are among the seats voting in the second phase on 29 April.
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Who are Lahiri and Das?
Lahiri is a noted economist who served as the chief economic adviser between 2002 and 2007, a team spanning two prime ministers–the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government and Manmohan Singh- led United Progressive Alliance government.
A former reader at the Delhi School of Economics, he has served as a member of the 15th Finance Commission, chairman of Bandhan Bank, executive director of the Asian Development Bank, senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and consultant to the World Bank.
The BJP fielded Lahiri from Balurghat in South Dinajpur just before the 2021 assembly elections. He won, defeating Trinamool Congress’s Sekhar Dasgupta by more than 13,000 votes. He chose not to contest this time.
Das, an immunologist, left the BJP in 2023—two years after losing from Purbasthali Uttar in North Bardhaman—to take charge as director of the Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER).
Before entering electoral politics, he was professor and chair of the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine at Jawaharlal Nehru University. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he was a prominent voice on social media, advocating the use of BCG—Bacille Calmette-Guerin, a vaccine used to prevent tuberculosis—as a prophylactic against coronavirus.
Das is associated with the Molecular Immunology Forum and has received several honours, including the Tata Innovation Fellowship (2023) and fellowship of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru (2018).
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