BackShashi Tharoor to continue as IT committee chief, parliamentary committees get constituted
Tharoor had to face the ire of senior leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who even accused him of biasChairpersons of almost all the parliamentary committees are continuing like before
PremiumFormer union minister and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor manages to retain the chairmanship of parliamentary committee on Information Technology (IT) which was looking at the allegations of misuse of Facebook for political gains. The development comes in the backdrop of the announcement on Tuesday about parliamentary committees getting constituted.
Tharoor had to face the ire of senior leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who even accused him of bias and not following established norms while inviting people before a standing committee of Parliament. The problem between BJP and Congress started after Tharoor decided to invite officials of Facebook before the parliamentary committee after the story of misuse by Facebook was published by WSJ.
Members of BJP had also reached out to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to complain against Tharoor and atleast two members had requested his removal. The developments are significant because investigations against Facebook which was stalled due to reconstitution of parliamentary committees could restart with Tharoor returning at the top post.
In all, 24 Departmentally Related Standing Committee (DRSCs) of both the Houses got reconstituted with effect from 13 September but details of which were shared on Tuesday evening.
“Lok Sabha, Om Birla, in consultation with Chairman, Rajya Sabha, M. Venkaiah Naidu, has constituted 24 Departmentally Related Standing Committees with effect from 13 September 2020," a statement by Lok Sabha secretariat on Tuesday evening said.
The parliamentary bulletin dated Tuesday shared details of reconstituted committees. Chairpersons of almost all the parliamentary committees are continuing like before. One year tenure of most of the parliamentary committees were scheduled to end before mid September. All the reconstituted committees have 21 members from Lok Sabha and 10 members of Rajya Sabha.
The extension of tenures of most chairpersons of the parliamentary committees has meant that chairpersons of some of the key committees including Jayant Sinha of finance, Anand Sharma of home affairs, Jairam Ramesh of Science & Technology, Environment and Forests and Climate Change, Bhratuhari Mahtab of labour among others will continue.
Since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic in the country, some of the key parliamentary committees have taken up related issues. While labour committee took up the issue of interstate migrant workers who returned to their states during national lockdown, home affairs committee discussed the situation of pandemic in the country, the one on science and technology took up the issue of preparedness to deal with covid-19 or any other pandemics. With the committees getting reconstituted, their meetings could resume soon.
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