Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have told senior BJP colleagues that party MPs who have conflict of interest should avoid becoming members of parliamentary committees. Sources said that the Prime Minister raised the issue with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu on the sidelines of the BJP National Executive meeting in Bengaluru on Saturday.
His intervention comes against the backdrop of India’s commitment to increase the size of pictorial warnings on cigarette and bidi packets running into trouble after the subordinate legislation panel set up to look into the issue shot down the proposal, saying tobacco use does not cause cancer. Dilip Gandhi, BJP MP and head of the panel, said tobacco consumers could live 100 years.
Modi intervenes following BJP MPs’ statements on tobacco