Tharoor continues as chairman of parliamentary panel on IT, Anand Sharma of Home; Harsimrat Badal member of External Affairs committee
Sep 29, 2020
New Delhi [India], September 29 : Congress leader Shashi Tharoor will continue to head parliamentary panel on IT and Anand Sharma on Home while SAD leader and former union minister Harsirmrat Kaur Badal has been made a member of the panel on External Affairs in the new committees that have constituted by the presiding officers of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi continues to be a member of Standing Committee on Defence while Jairam Ramesh will head the Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests and Climate Change.
Sukhbir Singh Badal has been made a member of the Standing Committee on Finance whose members also include former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Manish Tewari. The panel is headed by Jayant Sinha.
Tharoor has had differences with the BJP members over a move to summon a meeting of the panel concerning some allegations levelled against Facebook. A BJP member had also written to Speaker seeking his removal.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla with Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu have constituted 24 department-related Standing Committees with effect from September 13. Each committee has 21 members from Lok Sabha and 10 members from Rajya Sabha.
The committee on external affairs is headed by PP Chaudhary and its members include P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Jaya Bachan, Meenakshi Lekhi and Poonam Mahajan.
BJP's Jual Oram heads the committee on Defence, BJD's Bhartruhari Mahtab on Labour, Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav on Health and Family Welfare, TMC''s Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and YSRC party's V Vijaysai Reddy on Commerce.
BJP's PC Gaddigoudar will head the panel on Agriculture.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is a member of the committee on Home.
