New Delhi: To keep a tab on critical political developments, the Narendra Modi government is studying a proposal to create a new political desk in the Union home ministry. The desk is likely to be headed by a retired bureaucrat who will be tasked with studying political developments across states and their possible ramifications for the Central government.
Such an exercise will be undertaken by the MHA for the first time and comes months ahead of the Assembly elections in various states. The MHA has also planned a series of steps to build bridges with state governments after Centre-state ties hit a new low during the previous UPA regime. The defunct inter-state councils and zonal councils are set to be revived and their scope widened. The revival of the council, formed in 1990 and tasked to examine subjects of common interest between the Centre and states or among states, figured prominently in the BJP’s election manifesto.
Top government sources pointed out that currently, there is no mechanism at the level of the Central government to analyse the issues concerning the state governments, which many a time flare up into political agitations and sometimes constitutional breakdowns.
Politically sensitive issues brewing in different states will now catch the attention of the proposed political desk in the MHA, which will then give its inputs to the PMO.
“Each state has unique issues and needs to be closely watched by the MHA before the latter can extend any support to the state or even prevent possible law and order disturbances,” a top official said.
So far, the home ministry has been relying on inputs generated by the Intelligence Bureau regarding politically sensitive issues.
“There is a thinking that the ministry cannot solely rely on intelligence inputs. Such issues need to analysed by the ministry itself since it can have deep political repercussions at the national level,” a top government functionary said.
While the proposal is still in its nascent stages, MHA officials are positive over the proposal getting the nod of home minister Rajnath Singh.
