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With the winter session of Parliament due to begin in a fortnight, the Congress is all set to track the functioning of the Narendra Modi-led government. Seven "shadow Cabinet committees", headed by senior Congress MPs AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge have started meeting here to formulate the agenda for monitoring crucial ministries, including environment, finance, commerce, defence, railways.
The Congress is worried that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government might dilute central schemes of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as well as insidiously pushing through the saffron agenda in sensitive ministries like the human resource development (HRD). The recent example of the Modi government renaming an existing UPA programme "Nirmal Bharat" as "Swachch Bharat Abhiyan" with much fanfare and robbing the Congress of any credit has stung the party. The Congress has now decided to keep a close watch and thwart such attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
A senior MP heading one of the committees told Business Standard, "The mandate we have been given is mainly to monitor the legislations and policies of our respective ministries. However, we shall also be proactively taking up issues which are being neglected by the government."
While the committee on finance, foreign affairs, commerce and information and broadcasting convened by former Union ministers Veerappa Moily with Anand Sharma and Jyotiraditya Scindia as members has already met and is due to meet again before November 24, it is closely scrutinising the government's Bills slated for the upcoming session.
Several of these committees comprise MPs who are already members of standing committee of that particular ministry like Rajeev Satav of defence and Scindia of finance. Former defence minister A K Antony heads the committee on defence, home, law and justice with Satav and Ashwani Kumar as members. Significantly, even while these shadow committees are intended to track the NDA government within Parliament, the Congress has as yet failed to come up with a holistic plan to tackle the BJP's growing presence nationally. So while Congress MPs of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are involved in this exercise, the expertise of political leaders such as Ajit Jogi, Kamal Nath, Shri Prakash Jaiswal lies unutilised.
The Congress-led UPA, which had been in the forefront of bringing in landmark laws in the education sector such as the Right to Education or scholarships for minorities, is apprehensive of the Sangh agenda for education. "Undoubtedly, the HRD ministry is one which is being targeted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and we will keep a close watch on such attempts," said a committee member. While the shadow committee on panchayati raj, HRD and northeastern region has Mani Shankar Aiyar as convenor, it has Bhalchandra Mungekar and Sushmita Dev as members.
Former minister Mallikarjun Kharge is the convenor of the committee on railways and labour with Oscar Fernandes and Ranjeeta Ranjan as members. Former food minister K V Thomas, former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh and Gaurav Gogoi are members of the committee on rural development and environment issues, while Ghulam Nabi Azad, J D Seelam and K Suresh are members of the committee tracking the health and women and child development ministries.
The UPA, during its decade-long regime, had enacted several rights-based social welfare laws and one of the main tasks of a committee such as the one on agriculture and drinking water and sanitation, headed by Digvijaya Singh with Ashok Chavan and Ninong Erring as members, is to see that these laws are not amended or diluted in any way.
The concept of the shadow Cabinet committee harks back to British Parliament where the opposition party appoints an MP to 'shadow' each of the members of the council of ministers. With this, the Congress aims to deliver in its role of a constructive and effective opposition, notwithstanding its weak bench strength of 44 MPs, however the party is yet to come out with a holistic response to counter the BJP's ever increasing national footprint.
