Parties reach consensus on House panels, Congress may head 4, including external affairs & HRD

NEW DELHI: After days of impasse over distribution of department-related parliamentary standing committees, parties are learnt to have reached a consensus with Congress likely to head four key panels including external affairs, education, human resource development and agriculture.

Sources said a notification in this regard is expected shortly. In 2014, with the Congress tally at just 44 MPs, the party held the chair of parliamentary panels on external affairs and finance. External affairs was then headed by senior Congress politician Shashi Tharoor and finance by Veerappa Moily.

Sources said Congress was demanding external affairs, finance, defence and home affairs. Govt had refused to hand over even one of these panels. It argued that since Congress as the principal opposition party heads the Public Accounts Committee, which audits all govt expenditure, it need not be given finance.

Sources said Trinamool Congress is set to get two committees whereas Samajwadi Party, which is entitled to get one Lok Sabha committee, has agreed to forego its claim, seeking chairmanship of a Rajya Sabha committee to be headed by party's senior neta Ram Gopal Yadav.

Sources said that although JDU, one of the key NDA constituents, is not entitled to any panel, it will get one from BJP's quota.

There are 24 department-related standing committees (DRSCs). Each of these committees has 31 members - 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha. These members are to be nominated by the Speaker of Lok Sabha or the Chairman of Rajya Sabha respectively. The term of office of these committees does not exceed one year.

Normally, committees are formed during Parliament sessions but it could not happen due to lack of consensus even as two sessions of the 18th Lok Sabha have already taken place.