Sushil Modi,Gogoi included in reconstituted parliament panels

Various department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees were on Saturday reconstituted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in consultation with Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu. Accordingly, Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Anand Sharma and Jairam Ramesh were retained as the head of parliamentary standing committees, According to the bulletins issued by both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats, the reconstituted committees for the year 2021-22 shall come into effect from September 13. Anand Sharma will continue to head the parliamentary panel on Home Affairs and Ramesh will retain the chairmanship of the Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Shashi Tharoor has also been retained as the chairman of the committee on Information Technology.

BJP's Sushil Kumar Modi, a former deputy chief minister of Bihar, replaced Bhupender Yadav as the chairman of the panel on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice. Jual Oram will retain the chairmanship of the Committee on Defence, in which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi continues to be a member. BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad has been included as a member in the Parliamentary panel on Finance and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in the panel on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice. Another BJP member Prakash Javadekar has been made a member of the panel on External Affairs.

Former chief justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has been included as a member in the panel on Information Technology, while Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur has been included in the panel on Railways. YSR Congress's Vijaysai Reddy has been reappointed the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce, Samajwadi Party's Ram Gopal Yadav of Health and Family Welfare, TRS member K Keshava Rao of Industry, DMK's Kanimozhi on the panel on chemicals and fertilisers and JD(U)'s Rajiv Ranjan Singh will head the panel on energy.

P C Gaddigoudar will head the panel on Agriculture, BJP member Rakesh Singh on Coal and Steel and Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh has been appointed to be the Chairman of the Committee on Energy. Trinamool Congress member Sudip Bandyopadhyay will continue to head the panel on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and BJD member Bhartruhari Mahtab the panel on Labour. All three Rajya Sabha members of Shiv Sena have been moved to new committees, with Sanjay Raut shifted from Defence to External Affairs, Anil Desai from Coal and Steel to Commerce and Priyanka Chaturvedi from Commerce to Transport, Tourism and Culture.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi of Congress has also been shifted from the panel on Defence to Home, while Derek O'Brien (Trinamool) has been changed from Transport to Home and Indu Bala Goswami (BJP) from Health to science and Technology. Similarly, Chhaya Verma (Congress) has been shifted from the panel on Agriculture to Social Justice and Empowerment, Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD) from Railways to Labour, Shaktisinh Gohil (Congress) from IT to Transport and Sasmit Patra (BJD) from Education to Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice. Mausam Noor (Trinamool) has also been shifted from Commerce to Water Resources and MC Mary Kom from the panel on Food to Urban Development.