Congress Seeks Chairmanship of 5 Standing Committees, Govt Offers 3

New Delhi: Congress, which won 99 Lok Sabha seats, has made a claim for chairmanships of five department-related parliamentary standing committees. Government representatives, who have started negotiations on the matter with the main Opposition party, responded by offering Congress nominees a minimum of three chairmanships while talks are on for a fourth, it is learnt.
While the huge majority of the BJP-led NDA in the last two Lok Sabha meant proportionate share of the chairmanships of the total 24 standing committees too going to the ruling side, the sizable presence of the INDIA bloc this time in the House meant the Opposition side being eligible for a larger number of panel chairmanships and hence the hard negotiations.

Sources said during the government-Congress representatives’ discussion held here on August 22, the Opposition nominees asked for the chairmanships of four standing committees attached to the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha. The government side maintained that it could consider giving Congress a maximum of three House committees’ chairmanships from Lok Sabha as three other INDIA bloc parties – DMK, SP and Trinamool – have to be allotted chairmanship of one standing committee each this time from the Opposition quota in Lok Sabha.

The ruling side also pointed out that Congress has already got the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee.

While parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju and ministers of state Arjun Ram Meghwal and L Murugan represented the government, the Congress side comprised its deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi and party chief whips Kodikunnil Suresh (Lok Sabha) and Jairam Ramesh (Rajya Sabha).

Coming to the specifics of the Lok Sabha committees, the Congress side is learnt to have insisted on getting the chairmanship of one of the three key committees – of finance or external affairs or defence – in addition to the chairmanships of two other panels – of social justice and empowerment and of agriculture, animal husbandry and food processing. The government side, while telling the Congress representatives that their demand for the chairmanship of one of the three key standing committees will be considered by the top leadership, offered the Opposition party the chairs of the panels on labour, textile and skill development and of rural development and panchayati raj.

For the one Rajya Sabha House panel chairmanship it could head, Congress asked for the chairmanship of the Committee on Home Affairs but the government side offered the committee on science and technology, environment, forests and climate change.

In the last Lok Sabha, where Congress had only 53 members, it got the chairmanship of just one house committee.
(Courtesy: The Economic Times)