It was a last minute decision by the Congress to join the joint committee of Parliament on land Bill today as a section of its leaders believed that the party should not go unrepresented in the committee.
Sources said that there were two opinions within the party on whether to join the joint committee on land or not as the party, which favoured "no change" in the UPA's land law of 2013, did not like to be seen as agreeing to anything lesser than that.
Sources said that the decision to name former Youth Congress chief Rajiv Satav and former Union Minister K V Thomas on the panel was finally taken as another section believed that Congress should not go unrepresented in the committee.
At the AICC briefing, party's communication department chief Randeep Surjewala had said that the party will make its stand known by the evening when he was asked on Congress' stand on the Joint Committee.
Later, the announcement about setting up of the committee was made in the Lok Sabha.
The members of the Lok Sabha who will be on the Joint Committee include K V Thomas, Rajiv Satav (both Congress), Anand Rao Adsul (Shiv Sena), Kaltan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), B Mahtab (BJD), Mohammad Salim (CPI-M), Chirag Paswan (LJP) and S S Ahluwalia, Udit Raj, Anurag Thakur, Ganesh Singh (all BJP). The names of the 10 Rajya Sabha members will be announced later.
Faced with stiff resistance from opposition and allies, government was today forced to refer the controversial Land Acquisition Bill to a Joint Committee of Parliament after Rahul Gandhi led the attack on it.
The government, which had promulgated ordinance twice on the Bill since December last after it faced similar resistance earlier, agreed to refer it to the 30-member committee after allies Shiv Sena and Akali Dal joined opposition in Lok Sabha in opposing it.
The Joint Committee of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will have to submit its report on the first day of Monsoon session on the bill which has already been passed by the Lower House.
