Congress MP KC Venugopal
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Twenty two MPs – 15 from Lok Sabha and seven from Rajya Sabha – were on Thursday elected unopposed to the ‘Public Accounts Committee’ (PAC) with senior Congress leader KC Venugopal likely to head the crucial Parliamentary panel.
The chairmanship of the multi-party panel is given conventionally to the main Opposition party and Congress sources said Venugopal, also party’s General Secretary (Organisation), will be named the chairperson of the panel.
Of the 15 Lok Sabha MPs elected unopposed, seven are from BJP, three from Congress and one each from Trinamool Congress, DMK, Samajwadi Party, Jana Sena and TDP.
From BJP, Ravishankar Prasad, Jagambika Pal, Anurag Thakur, Tejashwi Surya, Nishikant Dubey, CM Ramesh and Aparajita Sarangi have been elected while Dr Amar Singh and Jai Parkash are Congress members besides Venugopal. Trinamool Congress has its senior MP Sougata Roy, DMK has TR Baalu and SP Dharmendra Yadav as its members.
From Rajya Sabha, BJP has Ashok Chavan, K Lakshman and Sudhanshu Trivedi while Congress has Shaktisinh Gohil as its member. NCP has nominated Praful Patel as its member.
Senior Congress leaders KV Thomas and Mallikarjun Kharge (between 2014 and 2019) and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (2019-2024) headed the PAC in the past ten years.
The PAC’s main job is to ascertain that money granted by Parliament has been spent by the government “within the scope of the demand”.
Twenty-two MPs were also elected unopposed to the Committee on Public Undertakings and it includes Tariq Anwar and Kodikkunnil Suresh (Congress), Sudip Bandhyopadhyay (Trinamool), Kanimozhi (DMK), BY Raghavendra and Baijayant Panda (BJP).