Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge replaces KV Thomas to become new PAC chairman

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge replaces KV Thomas to become the new chairman of the 21-member Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. Thomas’ term ended on April 30.

The panel which is headed by an opposition leader has majority of the members from the ruling NDA. Except two, the remaining members of the new committee have been renominated.

Richard Hay and Janardan Singh Sigriwal of the BJP have been replaced by their own party members Subhash Chandra Baheria and Ram Shankar.

Other Members of Parliament from the Lok Sabha MPs who are in the panel include Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Prem Singh Chandumajra, Nishikant Dubey, Gajanan Chandrakant Kirtikar, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Riti Pathak, Neiphiu Rio, Abhishek Singh, Kirit Somaiya, Anurag Singh Thakur, Shivkumar C Udasi and P Venugopal.

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Naresh Agrawal, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Bhubaneswar Kalita, Shantaram Naik, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Ajay Sancheti and Bhupender Yadav are among the Rajya Sabha MPs who are part of the panel.

Public Accounts Committee of Parliament is the oldest Parliamentary committee that looks after the accounts showing the appropriation of sums granted by Parliament for expenditure of Government of India and such other accounts of autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies.

The PAC has been chaired by eminent Parliamentarians including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jyotirmoy Basu, PV Narasimha Rao and R Venkataraman.

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With inputs from PTI.