Parliamentary Standing Committees: Rahul Gandhi To Lead Defence Panel, Odisha’s Saptagiri Ulaka To Chair Rural Dev Panel

New Delhi: The standing committees of Parliament was restructured on Thursday with the formation of 24 key committees. Significant roles were assigned to prominent political leaders across party lines.

The Congress has been given the chairmanship of four key committees. Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, has been appointed as a member of the Defence Affairs Committee. The committee will be chaired by Radha Mohan Singh, a BJP MP. Congress leader from Odisha, Saptagiri Ulaka, has been appointed to head the committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was absent from the list of standing committee leaders. The Trinamool Congress, which is the fourth largest party in the Parliament, has also got crucial roles. TMC MP Dola Sen has been appointed as chairperson of the committee on commerce. TMC’s Kirti Azad has been appointed as the Chairman of the Committee on Chemicals and Fertilizers.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has become the chairman of the Communications and Information Technology committee. Actress-turned-politician and BJP MP Kangana Ranaut has been appointed as a member of this committee. This will be the first official role for Ranaut in parliamentary matters.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh will lead the Parliamentary Committee on Women, Education, Youth, and Sports Affairs. Meanwhile. Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Ram Gopal Yadav will be chairperson of the Health Affairs Committee.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor will lead the Foreign Affairs Committee and will work with Arun Govil, a BJP MP and actor, who has been appointed as a member of the same committee.

BJP leader Radha Mohan Das Agarwal has been made the head of the Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs. The Parliamentary Committee on Finance will be led by BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab.

BJP leader CM Ramesh will chair the committee on Railways. Former minister Anurag Thakur will be leading the parliamentary panel on Coal, Mines and Steel.

Key roles to BJP allies

Leaders from the BJP allies, including the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Janata Dal (United), Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), have also been assigned leadership roles.

NCP’s Sunil Tatkare will head the committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas, while Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Appa Barne will lead the committee on Energy.

Sanjay Jha of JD(U) will chair the committee on Transport, Tourism, and Culture. TDP’s Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy will lead the committee on Housing and Urban Affairs.

Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi will head the committee on Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Food Processing. Meanwhile, DMK leaders Tiruchi Siva and K Kanimozhi will chair the committees on Industry, and Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution respectively.

BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy has been selected as the chairperson of the committee on Water Resources.

What is a Standing Committee?

Standing committees focus on specific departments. These play a vital role in overseeing various Union ministries. These panels scrutinize budgetary allocations, review bills introduced in Parliament, and advise the government on key issues. These also give recommendations for the formulation of policies and on new bills to the government.