Ahluwalia to head jt parliamentary panel to go into land bill

Former Union minister and BJP MP S S Ahluwalia was today appointed chairman of a Joint Committee of Parliament that will go into the provisions of the controversial land acquisition bill.
Official sources said Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has made the appointment with effect from today. Ahluwalia is a BJP Lok Sabha member from Darjeeling in West Bengal.
Almost the entire Opposition and even some allies of the ruling NDA like Shiv Sena and Swabhimani Pakshya, are against various provisions of the amendment bill brought by the government.
Congress and Left parties have been specially targeting the Modi dispensation as anti-farmer and pro-corporate.

The 30-member Joint Committee of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha would submit its report on the first day of Monsoon Session on the bill which has already been passed by the Lower House.
The 20 members of the Lok Sabha who are on the joint panel include K V Thomas, Rajiv Satav (both Congress), Anand Rao Adsul (Shiv Sena), Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), B Mahtab (BJD), Mohammad Salim (CPI-M), Chirag Paswan (LJP) and Udit Raj, Anurag Thakur and Ganesh Singh (all BJP).
The 10 Rajya Sabha members include Ram Narain Dudi (BJP), Jairam Ramesh, Panna Lal Punia, Digvijay Singh (all Cong), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Sharad Yadav (JD-U), Sharad Pawar (NCP), Derek O'Brien (TMC) and Rajpal Singh Saini (BSP).

The government, which had promulgated ordinance twice on the bill since December last after it faced continuous resistance, had agreed to refer it to the committee, during the recently concluded Parliament session.