On Tuesday, in a wholescale rejig of Parliamentary Standing Committees, the BJP and its allies retained control of all five key panels — Finance, External Affairs, Defence and Home, but so far, the composition of two boards — Commerce and Chemical & Fertiliser were not notified.
According to sources, the government offered the chairmanship of these two committees to the Congress, who are yet to propose the names of their MPs who could head the two panels.
Also Read | Congress loses chairmanship of parliamentary committee on IT, Home; 6 key panels with BJP, its allies now
The government, sources said, had conveyed to the Congress nearly a month back, that it would not get a Parliamentary panel on Home till now headed by its Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi and committee IT headed by Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor.
Parliamentary panels on chemical & fertilisers and commerce were offered instead. “We waited for the Congress to send us names of their nominees to head the two panels. The process had been long overdue and we notified the other committees. We will wait for a reasonable amount of time for the Congress to forward the names of heads for these two committees, if they fail to do so, we will be forced to hand over the chairmanship of these committees to the other parties,” a senior official at Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs said.
The Congress, that till now headed both the committees on Home and Information & Technology, has already registered a strong protest with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and leader of the House in Rajya Sabha Piyush Goyal.
As per sources, the Congress Lok Sabha floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also met Speaker Mr. Birla to argue the Congress case and already has written twice to him. In Rajya Sabha, former Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge too had written to Mr. Goyal, reminding him about the tradition that key standing committees like Home, which the Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi was heading, usually remains with the Opposition parties.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress which had the chair of the Parliamentary panel on Food and Consumer Affairs has not been given the chairmanship of any Parliamentary committees after the reshuffle.
“Trinamool is the third largest party in Parliament, also the second largest Opposition party does not get a single chairmanship. The largest Opposition party loses two crucial chairmanships of standing committees. This is the stark reality of new India,” Trinamool leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’ Brien tweeted on Tuesday night.
Trinamool MP Sudip Bandhopadyay so far headed the standing committee on Food & Consumer Affairs. Adding injury to the insult, the BJP MP from West Bengal and key Trinamool baiter Locket Chatterjee has been appointed as chair of this very committee.
In the reshuffle, DMK has gained one standing committee and will not be heading the Parliamentary panel on Industry which was till now with Telangana Rashtra Samithi.
