Congress gets chairs for 3 committees in Lok Sabha, 1 in Rajya Sabha

The Congress had sought chairs for five Parliamentary Standing Committees — four of Lok Sabha and one of Rajya Sabha. One chair each is also likely to be granted to INDIA partners the Samajwadi Party, DMK, and AITC. For the one chair in the Rajya Sabha committees, the Congress had sought the crucial Committee on Home Affairs.

Several rounds of meetings between the government representatives and Opposition members took place before the government decided to allocate the standing committee chairs to the Opposition. The meetings were attended by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, and Union Minister of State for Law and Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal. The Congress was represented by Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, and chief whips of the parties Kodikunnil Suresh and Jairam Ramesh.

On August 16, 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 other committees constituted were the Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes, which will be headed by Ganesh Singh (BJP), Committee of Estimates, which will be headed by Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP), Committee on Public Undertakings, which will be headed by Baijayant Panda (BJP), and the Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which will be headed by Faggan Singh Kulaste (BJP).

On August 27, All India Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien had written to Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha J P Nadda over the delay in the re-constitution of department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DPSCs). In his letter, O’Brien said that the delay in the constitution of the committees has profound implications for the democratic process and the quality of legislation enacted.

In the last Lok Sabha term, when the Congress had 53 members, the party had the chairmanship of just one committee. This time, the Congress has 99 members in the Lok Sabha while other Opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party (37), TMC (29), and DMK (22) have considerable numbers in the Lok Sabha. These parties are also expected to get some representation in the House committees.