Shashi Tharoor will head the Standing Committee on External Affairs

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. File | Photo Credit: PTI

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor will head the Standing Committee on External Affairs and former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi will head the Parliamentary panel on Agriculture. Two-time MP from Koraput, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, will head the rural development panel while Rajya Sabha MP Digvijay Singh will head the Standing Committee on Education.

According to sources, the Congress has passed resolutions on four panels that he should lead.

It was heard that within the Standing Committee which comes under the purview of the Rajya Sabha, the Congress wanted the chairmanship of the Home Panel, but the government refused. Instead, it gave it to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Forestry and Climate Change, which Congress leader Jairam Ramesh chaired in the last Lok Sabha. However, this group insisted on the Committee in charge of Education. Mr. Ramesh will be a member of the committee he chaired.

With the Congress keeping social justice as the centerpiece of its 2024 campaign, the party was determined to balance the experience of leading such panels with class figures. The election of Mr. Channi and Mr. Anger is part of this effort. The party is determined to show its leadership in North India. “After KC Venugopal was selected for the PAC, we would not allow two other MPs from the south to chair the committees,” the senior leader explained why Mr.

Long discussions with the government about the Parliamentary Standing Committees were conducted by Mr. Ramesh, who is the party’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, along with his colleague in the Lok Sabha Kodikunnil Suresh and the party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi.