Major reshuffle in Parliament’s standing committees, huge loss to Congress, TMC becomes third largest party

The news of major changes in the Parliamentary Standing Committee has come to the fore. The Congress is said to have lost the chairmanship of the Paarl panel on Home and IT. At the same time, TMC, the country’s third largest party in the Lok Sabha, has also not been given the chairmanship of any panel. All important parliamentary panels like finance, defence, home and foreign affairs are now headed by BJP MPs. And most of them are former ministers. Notably, for the first time in nearly three decades, the opposition parties have not been given the chairmanship of any of the four major parliamentary panels in the latest reshuffle announced on Tuesday. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who headed the panel on information technology, has been replaced by an MP from the Shinde faction of Shiv Sena. The Home Affairs Committee, which was with the Congress, has also gone out of hand.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, however, has been kept as the chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forest and Climate Change. At the same time, BJP MP and retired IPS officer Brij Lal has been made the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs in place of Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Shiv Sena MP Prataprao Jadhav of Shinde faction has been appointed in place of Shashi Tharoor, who is contesting the election of Congress President. Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, in a letter to Speaker Om Birla last month, said he was disappointed to learn from Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi that the decision to withdraw the allocation of the role of chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT had been taken. Is

This is the reality of New India

According to sources, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge had also written a letter to Leader of the House Piyush Goyal, opposing the government’s move to “grab” the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs from the Congress. After the 2019 general election, the opposition party lost the chairmanship of the House Panel on Foreign Affairs and Finance. The Trinamool Congress, which had the chairmanship of the parliamentary panel on food and consumer affairs, has not been given the chairmanship of any parliamentary committee after the reshuffle. TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien said in a statement that TMC is the third largest party in Parliament. The second largest opposition party does not get a single president. The largest opposition party loses two important chairpersons of the standing committees. This is the reality of New India.

16 are headed by Lok Sabha members and eight Rajya Sabha members

Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav has been replaced as the chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare. The panel on food will be headed by BJP MP Locket Chatterjee and his party colleague Vivek Thakur on health. Also, the DMK has been given the chairmanship of the parliamentary panel on industry, which till now was with the TRS. There are 24 parliamentary standing committees, of which 16 are headed by Lok Sabha members and eight by Rajya Sabha members.