Congress MP Shashi Tharoor will continue to head the parliamentary panel on Information Technology, while party leader Anand Sharma will continue as the head of parliamentary panel on Home.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, in consultation with Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu, on Tuesday announced the composition of several reconstituted parliamentary standing committees.
Former Union Minister and Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal has been made a member of the panel on External Affairs. Badal recently resigned from the Union Cabinet in protest against the farm bills. Sukhbir Singh Badal has been made a member of the standing committee on Finance, which is headed by Jayant Sinha. This panel also includes Dr Manmohan Singh and Manish Tewari as members.
Rahul Gandhi continues to be a member of parliamentary standing committee on Defence and Jairam Ramesh will head the committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forest and Climate Change.
The decision to continue with Tharoor as head of the parliamentary panel on information technology is a significant development as his decisions to summon Facebook executives and take up the suspension of 4G Internet services in J&K had drawn criticism from the committee’s BJP members, some of whom had even sought his ouster.
According to the list released by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, Tharoor will continue to chair the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology.
A political slugfest had broken out between Tharoor and BJP MP and member of the parliamentary panel of information technology Nishikant Dubey over the suspension of 4G services in Jammu and Kashmir and summoning of Facebook executives over alleged misuse of the social media platform for hate-speech.
What is also significant is that various Congress leaders who were critical of the government as chairperson of their respective parliamentary panels have been retained.
Congress leader Anand Sharma will continue to chair the parliamentary panel on home affairs and Jairam Ramesh will remain the head of the panel on environment and science and technology.
The chairpersons of all parliamentary standing committees have been retained.
YSR Congress’ Vijaysai Reddy has been reappointed the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, Samajwadi Party’s Ram Gopal Yadav of Health, TRS’s K. Keshava Rao of Industry, TMC’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay of Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, BJD’s Bhartruhari Mahtab of Labour. The DMK’s Kanimozhi will continue to lead the panel on chemicals and fertilizers, and the JD(U)’s Rajiv Ranjan Singh will head the panel on energy.
All remaining chairpersons of the parliamentary standing committees, most of whom are from the BJP, have also not been changed. The department-related parliamentary standing committees are constituted for a period of one year and comprise 21 members from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha.