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Ex-CJI Gogoi, Scindia enter key House panels in rejig
New Delhi: Former chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, has been made a member of Parliament’s standing committee on external affairs while NCP leader Sharad Pawar
New Delhi: Former chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, has been made a member of Parliament’s standing committee on external affairs while NCP leader Sharad Pawar has entered another key House panel—defence—in a major restructuring of the panels, largely to accommodate 65 MPs of the Rajya Sabha.
Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu also nominated former union minister and BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is now in the human resource development panel which will also have BJP’s Vinay Sahasrabuddhe as the new chairman. The shuffle in the HRD panel comes at a crucial time when the Covid-19 pandemic has altered the traditional education landscape, forced millions of students to go online, deferred key competitive exams and also when the NDA government is set to unveil its new education policy.
The newly-elected Rajya Sabha members were distributed seats in 23 of 24 department-related standing committees of Parliament on Thursday, months before its monsoon session is set to start.
Indian Parliament has 24 standing committees of which eight are headed by Rajya Sabha members while the remaining 16 are led by lawmakers from the Lok Sabha. Every member is entitled to be a member of a standing committee.
Seven panels—home affairs, agriculture, external affairs, finance, petroleum, science and technology and industry—got one new member each. The energy panel got the most (6), followed by 5 members each in the urban development and social justice panels.
Nominated MP Gogoi is the lone new entrant in the foreign affairs panel, Pawar is accompanied by RJD’s Prem Chand Gupta and Congress’ Rajiv Satav in the defence committee which also has Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as its member.
Former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh got agriculture panel, former union coal minister Shibu Soren, who stepped down from the Manmohan Singh cabinet is in the coal and steel committee. CPIM’s Elamaram Kareem is in the finance panel and former railway minister and senior Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi is in home affairs panel.
While all new MPs (barring minister Ramdas Athawale), have been given berths in different panel, 16 MPs including former prime minister HD Devegowda will be allowed to participate in the panels only after taking their oath.
Along with Scindia, BJP’s Bhubneswar Kalita, GK Vasan of Tamil Maanila Congress(M) and AIADMK’s M. Thambi Durai are in the HRD panel.
Among the prominent BJP MPs, Sudhanshu Trivedi is in the energy panel, Ashok Gasti in social justice and empowerment, Arun Singh in water resources, Roopa Ganguly in food and consumer affairs and Sanajaoba Leishemba in science and technology panel.
Among the prominent Congress leaders, Mallikarjun Kharge is in commerce, Digvijaya Singh in urban development, KC Venugopal is in transport, tourism and culture, Shaktisinh Gohil in Information Technology and Deepender Singh in law and justice committee.
Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi is in the commerce panel.
Even as the pending vacancies in the panels are filled up, the industry committee will not be able to sit as its chairman, K Kesava Rao, could not take oath on Wednesday, when 45 of 61 new members including 36 first timers were administered oath. A senior Rajya Sabha official said, “if a member has not taken oath, he can’t participate in the business of the House and panels are an extension of the House.”
