The deadlock over 24 parliamentary committees ended today, with the dispute between Congress and BJP over chairmanship of key panels on Finance, Defence and External Affairs ‘‘amicably settled’’.The deal was clinched at a meeting between Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and BJP leader V.K. Malhotra. For agreeing to resolve the crisis, the BJP got chairmanship of committees on Finance, External Affairs, Home, Commerce, Rural Development, Coal and Steel, and Social Justice and Empowerment. The Congress, however, managed to retain chairmanship of the committees on Defence and HRD. While veteran BJP leaders, Laxminarayan Pandeya and B.C. Khanduri will chair the panel on External Affairs and Finance, Congress’ Balasaheb Vikhe Patel will head the committee on Defence. The Finance Committee will consist of heavyweights from both the Opposition and the ruling party — BJP chief M. Venkaiah Naidu, former Finance minister Yashwant Sinha and Congress’ Jairam Ramesh.Former BJP ministers M.M. Joshi, Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar will get to chair the committees on Commerce, Home and Coal and Steel. BJP strongman from UP, Kalyan Singh, will head the panel on Rural Development and Sumitra Mahajan, Social Justice and Empowerment.The Left also bagged a few plum committees — Labour (CPI’s Vasudevan Nair), Railways (CPI-M’s Basudev Acharaya), Urban Development (CPI-M’s Mohammed Salim), Transport, Culture and Tourism (CPI-M’s Nilotpal Basu).Apart from Defence and HRD, Congress’ Santosh Bagrodia will head the panel on Industry, E.N. Sudarshan Nachiappan Personnel/Public Grievances/Law and Justice, N. Janardhan Reddy Petroleum and Natural Gas, Pallaam Raju IT and R. Sambasiva Roa Water Resources.BJP has given chairmanship of panels on Chemical and Fertilisers to Shiv Sena, and Science and Technology/Environment and Forests to AIADMK.
