The Congress has secured the chairmanship of five Parliamentary Standing Committees but failed to get the command of the panel it was keenest on — the Human Resource Development committee. The BJP has got the chairmanship of 11 committees, including that of the HRD Ministry.
Senior Congress sources said the party had made a strong pitch for the HRD committee, but the government was unwilling to part with it. The Congress, the sources added, was even willing to trade the chairmanship of the Home Ministry Standing Committee for the HRD panel but to no avail.
During the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA Government (1998-2004), the HRD Ministry had witnessed a fierce ideological battle over the allegation that the government was “saffronising” history textbooks. Fearing a repeat, the Congress wanted to head the committee to enable it to keep an eye on the Ministry headed by Smriti Irani.
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Instead, BJP’s Rajya Sabha Member J.P. Nadda, currently a party general secretary and recognised as a rising star, will head the HRD committee, which is packed with first-time BJP MPs including two sadhus — Chand Nath and Sumedhanand Saraswati. The Congress has one representative, Mullapally Ramachandran, while the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar and the Socialist Party’s N.K. Premachandran are also members of the HRD committee.