Five members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Information Technology including a BJP MP from Rajya Sabha wrote a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla advocating in favour of senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor continuing as the panel’s chairperson following reports that in the latest reshuffle he could lose the post.
According to sources, the government has conveyed to the Congress that in place of the IT committee, it will get the chairmanship of the Parliamentary panel of Chemical and Fertilizer. Earlier last week, Lok Sabha floor leader for the Congress Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote a letter to Mr. Birla protesting against the move.
In a letter co-signed by five members – BJP MP Anil Agarwal, CPI(M) MP John Brittas, Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra and DMK MP T. Sumathy – the members have argued that allocation of the committee to a particular chairman decided at the onset of the Lok Sabha as a norm remains in the chair until it is dissolved.
