Tharoor to lead external affairs committee; Digvijaya to chair edu panel

PTI, New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor will head the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs and veteran leader Digvijaya Singh will head the panel on education, party sources said on Thursday. Former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi will lead the parliamentary standing committee on agriculture and Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka will head the panel on rural development. Channi, who is a Dalit, and Ulaka, who hails from a tribal community, were chosen by the party with social justice being the centrepiece of all recent appointments.

The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has been stressing the participation of the deprived sections in governance and calling for the party organisation to be more inclusive. The sources said the Congress has forwarded the names of the four leaders to head the four departmentrelated parliamentary standing committees it has been assigned to lead. While there has been no official notification on the chairship of the parliamentary standing committees, it is expected to come out soon.

The Congress will chair the Department Related Standing Committee on External Affairs; Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Processing; Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in the Lok Sabha; and Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports in the Rajya Sabha. This was decided after hectic parleys between the government and the opposition over the panels’ chairship. Congress’ chief whip in the Rajya Sabha Jairam Ramesh and the party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi were involved in the negotiations with the government to arrive at a consensus.