UP Governor Ram Naik will preside over the first meeting of the 55 member committee to commemorate the sesquicentennial or 150 birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi here on Tuesday.  The meeting will deliberate on the policies and programmes for celebrating the 150th anniversary and giving its approval.  The brief of the committee is to lay the guidelines and supervise the programmes   and taking final decision on detailed programmes and their dates.

The committee is all inclusive and its members are drawn from different walks of life including educationists, religious leaders, media, historians and other different fields. The notification for the constitution of the committee was issued by the state government on June 14. 

The members of the committee include the chief minister Yogi Adityanath Chief justice of the Allahabad high court Dileep Baba Sahab Bhosle, UP assembly speaker Hridya naryan Dikshit, two deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma. The three former chief ministers Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, leader of opposition in UP assembly Ram Govind chowdhary are also the members of the committee.

The committee also includes the leaders of different political parties, their state presidents Members of Rajya Sabha representatives of different educational and cultural organizations, senior bureaucrats, religious leader like Maulana Kalbe Sadiq and historian Yogesh Praveen are also the members of the committee. Avneesh Awasthi, additional chief secretary information is the member secretary of the committee.

The state government had constituted the committee on the suggestion of the Governor Ram Naik. The issue of constitututing the committee was first raised during the three day Governors conference presided by the Presided by the President Ramnath Kovind in Delhi on June 3. Ram Naik had given the suggestion for constituting the committee at the state level with the participation of both the governor and the chief minister.  The Governor had also suggested to the state government to make financial provision in the budget for the committee. The state government later on June 14 issued the orders for constituting the committee.