KC Venugopal, one of the most powerful general secretaries in the Congress and Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Kerala, is set to take on yet another responsibility as he is likely to be appointed the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Elected to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in 2020, Venugopal won his Lok Sabha seat in 2024 from Alappuzha. Apart from being the general secretary (organisation) for the Grand Old Party, he has also been minister of state in UPA-1. At present, he is also the deputy whip for the Congress in the Lower House.
As a mark of parliamentary tradition, the committee’s chairmanship is given to the Opposition. Before the last Lok Sabha elections, between 2014 and 2019, Congress’s Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was the chairman.
However, the BJP, which is the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha, has put strong MPs in the committee from its side.
Nishikant Dubey, who was part of the PAC between 2009 and 2019, has once again been made a member of the panel. Alongside him, former Union minister Anurag Singh Thakur is also being made a member of this committee. Thakur was part of the committee for nearly five years from 2014 and had to excuse himself once he was made a Union minister.
Another senior member of the BJP and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is also part of the crucial finance committee. The BJP has also given an opportunity to one of its young guns in Bengaluru — MP Tejashwi Surya — to be a part of the committee.
The Lok Sabha on Thursday announced the results of the election to the Public Accounts Committee. Veteran leader Jagdambika Pal, first-time Lok Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh CM Ramesh, Aparajita Sarangi and Trivendra Rawat are the other members that have been elected to the committee from BJP. Apart from Venugopal, senior MP Dr Amar Singh from Congress, TR Baalu from DMK, Dharmendra Yadav from Samajwadi Party and professor Sougata Roy are some members of the opposition in the committee. BJP’s allies from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, TDP MP Magunta Sreenivasulu Reddy and Jana Sena MP Balashowry Vallabhaneni, have also been elected as members to this panel.
The committee will also have seven elected members from the Rajya Sabha — Shakti Sinh Gohil of congress, Subhendu Sekhar Ray of TMC and Tiruchi Siva of DMK. The BJP has elected Dr K Lakshman, Sudhanshu Trivedi and former Maharashtra CM Ashokrao Chavan along with ally NCP senior leader and former union minister Praful Patel to the panel.
Along with the Estimates Committee and Committee on Public Undertaking, the Public Accounts Committee forms the crucial Finance Committee.
The PAC is responsible for auditing the expenditure and revenue of the government of India. It also keeps an account of whether the government of India has spent the money that has been assigned to a particular demand for grant under various heads.
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