Modi wants MPs with ‘conflicting interests’ out of all House panels

Days after BJP MPs who have interests in the beedi business and are members of a parliamentary panel sought relaxation in tobacco warnings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have asked parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu to look into other possible conflict of interests in such committees.

Modi, who has thrown his weight behind bigger pictorial warnings on tobacco products, also reportedly wants members with “conflicting interests” removed from the parliamentary panel that is examining the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003.

“It (review of conflict of interests) is likely to be an internal exercise as the membership of standing committees is officially decided by the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman,” said a source.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley Saturday said the government will take a “measured and responsible” decision on increasing the size of pictorial warnings for tobacco.

Individuals can give opinions, but government takes measured and responsible decisions,” Jaitley said on the sidelines of his party’s national executive meeting in Bengaluru. Making no direct comment on the removal members from the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate Legislations, Jaitley said, “There is a system in Parliament and it has also been written in the rules of procedures.”

The BJP had to face embarrassment when party MPs Dilip Gandhi, Shyam Charan Gupta and Ram Prasad Sarmah claimed there is no clear proof yet linking cigarette smoking to cancer. The Opposition, citing the land bill as well, has alleged that the government is catering to “business interests” and is not doing enough for the aam aadmi.

The government had deferred the April 1 deadline for implementation of a proposal to increase the size of pictorial warnings on tobacco products to 85 per cent.