Congress loses chair of Parliamentary panels on IT, Home

The Trinamool Congress has been denied any chairman’s post and the Samajwadi Party (SP) is no longer in charge of the health committee.

In the biggest rejig of parliamentary standing committees in the recent past, at least a dozen chairpersons have been reshuffled while Congress leaders have been removed as heads of committees on home affairs and information technology, officials said on Tuesday.

Congress loses chair of Parliamentary panels on IT, Home

The Trinamool Congress has been denied any chairman’s post and the Samajwadi Party (SP) is no longer in charge of the health committee.

According to the officials, at least four chairpersons have lost their seats and six lawmakers have been elevated as panel heads. All changes have been made with effect from September 13.

The Congress will head the chemicals and fertilizers panel and the committee on commerce. The Trinamool’s loss is linked with the current situation in the West Bengal assembly where no BJP leader heads any house committee. The SP’s depleted strength in the Upper House cost it the chairmanship of the health panel.

While the Trinamool and the SP lost the chairs, two leaders from the DMK—Thiruchi Siva and M Kanimozhi—are now heading parliamentary panels. While Siva is the chairperson of the industry committee, Kanimozhi, earlier heading the chemicals and fertilizers committee, is now in charge of the rural development panel.

The Congress is set to chair the panels of chemicals & fertilizers, and commerce.

The food, consumer affairs and public distribution committee has been taken away from the Trinamool and the BJP’s Bengal MP Locket Chatterjee is the new chairperson.

Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien tweeted, “Third largest party in #Parliament, All India Trinamool Congress also 2nd largest opposition party, DOES NOT GET EVEN ONE chairmanship. Also, largest opposition party loses two crucial chairmanships of Parliament committees. This is the stark reality of New India.”

The BJP’s Vivek Thakur has become chairperson of the education committee while the home committee, earlier led by the Congress’s Abhishek Singhvi, is now under BJP leader Brijlal. The ruling party’s Rajya Sabha lawmaker Bhubneshwar Kalita heads the parliamentary standing committee on health.

The IT panel, which was earlier chaired by Shashi Tharoor, is now under Prataprao Jadhav of the Shiv Sena. The BJP’s Jagdambika Pal will head the energy committee instead of the urban development committee, which will now be headed by Rajiv Ranjan (Lallan) Singh of the JD(U).

The water resources committee is now being headed by the BJP’s Parbatbhai Patel. Earlier it was led by the BJP’s Sanjay Jayaswal.

The parliament bulletin, however, has not announced the reconstituted committees on commerces, and chemicals & fertilizers. The Congress is confident that its lawmakers will head both panels.