The meetings of the three-member selection committees headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to choose the next Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioners (ICs), and a Vigilance Commissioner saw Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday flag the lack of names in the shortlists from the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs), and minority communities. Gandhi, the lone Opposition nominee in both panels, registered his dissent.

Sources said that after Gandhi pointed to a “systematic pattern” of “exclusion” of the backward and minority communities in appointments to Constitutional and autonomous institutions, Modi and Shah agreed to consider a few appointments from the limited applicant pool.

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