24 Parliamentary standing panels formed: BJP to lead 11, allies 4, Opposition 9

The Committee on Home Affairs will be chaired by BJP’s Dr Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, and the one on Defence will be headed by BJP’s Radha Mohan Singh. Bhartruhari Mahtab will head the Committee on Finance. C M Ramesh will head the panel on Railways and Nishikant Dubey the one on Communications and Information Technology.

Moreover, BJP MP Kangana Ranaut and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan have been chosen as members of the Communications and Information Technology committee.

Among the NDA allies, JD(U) has been allotted the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture (Sanjay Kumar Jha), while the Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs will be headed by TDP’s Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy.

The Congress has been allotted Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports that will be chaired by Digvijaya Singh; Committee on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing (Charanjit Singh Channi); Committee on External Affairs (Shashi Tharoor); and Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (Saptagiri Sankar Ulak).

Dola Sen of the TMC will head the Committee on Commerce, while Azad Kirti Jha will chair the Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers. The DMK has been allotted Committee on Industry (Tiruchi Siva) and Committee on Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (Shrimati Kanimozhi Karunanidhi).

Samajwadi Party’s Ram Gopal Yadav will chair the Committee on Health and Family Welfare.

Negotiations between the government and the Opposition parties over the committees had been going on for a couple of months.

On August 16 this year, five standing committees of Parliament were constituted, with Congress MP and general secretary in-charge (organisation) K C Venugopal being named as the chairperson of the Committee on Public Accounts. The post of chair of the Committee on Public Accounts as per convention is given to the Opposition.

The constitution of the committees reflect the changed numbers in the Lok Sabha where the BJP managed to win 240 seats, while the Congress won 99. In 2019 when the BJP had won 303 seats, the ruling party had kept the chairmanship of most of the parliamentary panels that scrutinises the key ministries dealing with security affairs with itself. It had left to the Opposition just the Home Affairs, a ministry headed by then party president Amit Shah.