New Delhi: The Middle on Saturday appointed economist and BJP MLA Ashok Kumar Lahiri as vice-president of Niti Aayog and scientist Govardhan Das as member of the federal suppose tank. The transfer comes days earlier than the second and ultimate part of West Bengal meeting elections on April 29.
Lahiri, a present BJP MLA from Balurghat in West Bengal, will exchange incumbent vice-chairman Suman Berry, whose time period ends on the finish of this month. Das, who contested the 2021 state elections on a Bharatiya Janata Social gathering ticket, was nominated as a member.
The appointments come amid an in depth election in West Bengal, with the Mamata Banerjee authorities and the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering locked in a fierce battle for the state.
Lahiri met PM Modi on Saturday afternoon and tweeted concerning the assembly afterwards.
At this time I met Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.@PMO India @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/QvSzfFCAe3
–Dr. Ashok Kumar Lahiri (@ashoklahiribjp) April 25, 2026
The primary part of voting in West Bengal was held on April 23 and recorded a turnout of 92 per cent. Each Balurghat and Purbastari Uttar constituencies associated to Lahiri and Das are among the many seats going to polls within the second part on April 29.
Additionally learn: ‘Didi is out’: Amit Shah expects BJP to win 110 of 152 seats in first part of polls in Bengal
Who’re Lahiri and Das?
Lahiri is a distinguished economist who served as chief financial advisor to the groups of two prime ministers, the Nationwide Democratic Alliance authorities led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the United Progressive Alliance authorities led by Manmohan Singh, from 2002 to 2007.
A former reader of the Delhi Faculty of Economics, he has served as a member of the fifteenth Finance Fee, chairman of Bandhan Financial institution, government director of the Asian Improvement Financial institution, senior economist on the Worldwide Financial Fund and guide to the World Financial institution.
The BJP had fielded Lahiri from Balurghat in south Dinajpur simply earlier than the 2021 meeting elections. He defeated Trinamool Congress’s Sekhar Dasgupta by a margin of over 13,000 votes. He selected to not take part within the contest this time.
Mr. Das, an immunologist, left the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering in 2023, two years after shedding to Purbastari Uttar in North Bardhaman, to develop into director of the Bhopal-based Indian Institute of Science Schooling and Analysis (IISER).
Earlier than getting into electoral politics, he was a professor and director of the Particular Middle for Molecular Medication at Jawaharlal Nehru College. Through the coronavirus pandemic, he grew to become a distinguished voice on social media, advocating for the usage of BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin), the vaccine used to stop tuberculosis, as a prophylactic towards the coronavirus.
Das is affiliated with the Molecular Immunology Discussion board and has obtained a number of honors together with Tata Innovation Fellowship (2023) and Indian Academy of Sciences Bengaluru Fellowship (2018).
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