NEW DELHI: Former chief economic adviser Ashok Lahiri is set to be named the new vice-chairman of Niti Aayog, replacing Suman Bery. Gobardhan Das, the director of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal, is to be nominated as a member of the govt’s premier think tank. Lahiri is currently a BJP MLA from Balurghat, but is not contesting the 2026 assembly polls. Das, a former JNU professor, had contested from Purbasthali Uttar constituency in the 2021 state polls as a BJP candidate. The two appointments come amid polls in West Bengal with the second round of voting on Wednesday and will be seen as an overture to the electorate.

Appointments seen as part of long-awaited Niti revamp

Significantly, Das is a Dalit and had allegedly faced attacks from TMC cadres in the violence that followed the 2021 elections in Bengal.The appointments are seen as part of a long-awaited overhaul of Niti Aayog, where Bery, a surprise pick, has been at the helm for four years. On several occasions, the Modi administration was seen to have bypassed Bery and dealt directly with the members or the CEO.Lahiri will bring his training as an economist and a policymaker to Niti Aayog, which has a part-time CEO after BVR Subrahmanyam’s exit last month. Lahiri is a career economist who taught at Delhi School of Economics and worked at the World Bank and IMF before returning to the finance ministry in the late 1990s. He then went on to head the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and was the chief economic adviser and subsequently a member of the 15th Finance Commission. He is seen as among the pioneers in the filed psephologist and co-authored ‘India Decides’ that mapped elections from 1952 to 1989.