Parliament panels: BJP heads 13, Cong gets 3

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 14

A Parliamentary notification has announced new Standing Committees –16 of the Lok Sabha and eight of the Rajya Sabha. The ruling party in the coalition, BJP, heads 13 of these while the Congress gets three and one each goes to the eight other parties.

Some voices in the Opposition expressed concern over the reduction in representation, especially the Congress not being allocated Finance and External Affairs, which leaders maintained should have been with the Opposition.

Congress MP and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor had earlier tweeted: “In the entire history of Parliamentary Standing Committees, the Cmt on External Affairs has always been headed by an Opposition Lok Sabha MP. Our tradition is foreign policy bipartisanship: our political differences stop at the nation’s borders. Dismaying”. 

Former Union Minister PP Choudhury will be heading the panel that includes former Minister of State for External Affairs and Patiala MP Preneet Kaur.

With the BJP and its allies returning to the 17th Lok Sabha in greater numbers and its strength increasing in the Rajya Sabha, overall balance is sought. In 2014, the BJP headed 11, the Congress three, Trinamool Congress two and one Standing Committee was headed each by six other parties.

In the Rajya Sabha, whose members head eight panels, Opposition members will chair five and the ruling BJP gets headship of three committees. While approving these, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu also approved nomination of Rajya Sabha on the 16 Standing Committees of the Lok Sabha. 

Opposition members of Rajya Sabha chaired four of the eight panels during the last two years and got leadership of one more committee this year. 

Before constituting these Committees, Naidu held consultations with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi.

"The Committee on External Affairs has always been headed by an Opposition Lok Sabha MP. Our tradition is foreign policy bipartisanship: our political differences stop at the nation’s borders. Dismaying." — Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and Former Union Minister