Shashi Tharoor to head Standing Committee on External Affairs

Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Charanjit Singh Channi, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, and Digvijay Singh appointed to head key parliamentary panels.

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

According to the sources, the Congress forwarded its choices for the four panels it is entitled to lead.

It is learnt that among the one Standing Committee that comes under the Rajya Sabha’s ambit, the Congress wanted to the chair of the Home Panel, but the government refused. Instead, it offered the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment Forest and Climate Change, which senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh headed in the last Lok Sabha. The party, however, insisted on the Standing Committee on Education. Mr. Ramesh will now be a member of the committee that he had headed.

With the Congress keeping social justice as the centrepiece of its 2024 campaign, the party was conscious to strike a balance between experience in leading such panels with the caste equations. Choice of Mr. Channi and Mr. Ulaka are part of this effort. The party is keen to project its north Indian leadership. “Once K.C. Venugopal was picked for PAC, we could not have allowed two more MPs from south to chair the committees,” a senior leader explained on why Mr. Ramesh was not accommodated.

The prolonged negotiations with the government over the Parliamentary Standing committees were done by Mr. Ramesh, who is the party’s chief whip in the Rajya Sabha, along with his counterpart in Lok Sabha Kodikunnil Suresh and the party’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi.