Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will retain his seat on the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence, while actor-politician Kangana Ranaut, representing the BJP as a first-time parliamentarian, has been assigned to the committee on Information Technology, according to a notification from the Rajya Sabha Secretariat issued Thursday.
Rahul Gandhi, who also serves as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was a member of the Defence Committee during the previous Lok Sabha as well. The committee will be chaired by BJP MP Radha Mohan Singh. The Congress party has been given leadership of four committees, including the External Affairs Committee, which will be headed by former Foreign Minister Shashi Tharoor.
Other Congress-led committees include Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports, chaired by Digvijaya Singh; Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Food Processing, led by former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Channi; and Rural and Panchayati Raj, headed by Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka. Notably, Sonia Gandhi, a seven-time MP and former Congress chief, was not named to any committees.
Key committees such as Defence, Finance, Home Affairs, and Coal, Mines, and Steel will be chaired by members from the ruling BJP. Home Affairs will be led by Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, while the prestigious Standing Committee on Finance will be chaired by Bhartruhari Mahtab, who previously served as Pro-Tem Speaker. Former Union Ministers Anurag Thakur and Rajiv Pratap Rudy will lead the committees on Coal, Mines and Steel, and Water Resources, respectively, while Nishikant Dubey will take charge of the Communications and IT committee.
Interestingly, Dubey and Shashi Tharoor had a notable disagreement in the previous Lok Sabha regarding Facebook’s policies on hate speech, which led to Dubey replacing Tharoor as committee head in 2022.
Joining Ranaut on the Communications and IT committee is fellow actor and Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, along with Priyanka Chaturvedi from the Shiv Sena faction led by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, who made headlines for her disqualification in the last Lok Sabha. Tiruchi Siva and Kanimozhi from Tamil Nadu’s DMK will chair the committees on Industry and Consumer Affairs, and Food and Public Distribution, respectively.
Several allies of the BJP, which secured a significant number of seats in the recent general elections, have been assigned to lead various committees. The TDP, led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, and Nitish Kumar’s JDU from Bihar will oversee the Housing and Urban Affairs, and Transport, Tourism, and Culture committees, respectively.
In light of upcoming elections in Maharashtra, allies of the BJP, including the Shiv Sena faction of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the NCP group led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, will lead committees on Energy and Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Each department-related standing committee, composed of members from both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, functions as a ‘mini parliament’ to oversee and evaluate the performance of their respective ministries.
