Ahluwalia likely to head joint Parliament panel on land bill

New Delhi: Former union minister SS Ahluwalia is likely to be the chairman of the Joint Committee of Parliament that will go into the provisions of the controversial land bill.

Parliament sources said the BJP member from Darjeeling in West Bengal is the most likely choice to head the 30-member joint panel.

Almost the entire Opposition and 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 S S Ahluwalia, Udit Raj, Anurag Thakur and Ganesh Singh (all BJP).

The ten Rajya Sabha members include Ram Narain Dudi (BJP), Jairam Ramesh, Panna Lal Punia, Digvijay Singh (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.