Speaker appoints members of four financial committees of Assembly

Notably, in a departure from tradition, the chairmanship of PAC has been given to a member of the ruling BJP. Before this, for around 55 years, the Assembly followed a tradition of giving the chairmanship of PAC to a member of the Opposition party.

An official of the Assembly secretariat said, “There is no rule that a member of the Opposition party must be given the chairmanship of PAC. Since 1968, the Assembly followed the tradition of giving chairmanship of PAC to a member of the Opposition. Before that, it used to be headed by a member of the ruling party and that too the finance minister.”

Each of these committees have 15 members. The PAC has two Congress MLAs – C J Chavda and Arjun Modhwadia – and one MLA of AAP, Hemant Ahir, as members.

In the remaining three committees, Congress has one member each. Tushar Chaudhary has been appointed as the member of COE, Imran Khedawala as the member of CPU and Geniben Thakor as a member of PRC. Rest of the members of these committees are BJP legislators.

Ahead of the Budget Session of the Assembly in February, Congress was denied the post of Leader of Opposition since it does not have adequate numbers in the House. During Assembly elections last December, BJP had got a historic majority by winning 156 seats. Congress won 17 seats and AAP opened its account in the Assembly by winning five seats.

Apart from appointing members and chairpersons of the four financial committees, the Speaker also appointed MLAs to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, Gujarat State Tribal Development Advisory Council, Gujarat State Panchayat Council, Gujarat State Cooperative Council and senates and courts of various universities.