The plan is to improve the ‘efficacy’ and ‘transparency’ of contract-awarding work being taken up under the Centre’s rural employment guarantee scheme

The choice of an OBC face as Haryana’s new CM fits snugly into BJP’s strategic outreach to the backward classes, constituting 40% of the state’s population, ahead of elections.That he is someone with whom predecessor Manohar Lal Khattar goes back a long way spares the saffron party the risk of collateral damage due to the sudden change.

State governments may have limited power to block the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The committees responsible for verifying documentation and deciding on citizenship are packed with central government officers, leaving little involvement for state representatives. The constitutional scheme of things puts central govt exclusively in charge of all such matters, with ‘citizenship, naturalisation and aliens’ figuring as entry no. 17 in the union list under the Seventh Schedule.