TMC loses chairmanship of two parliamentary standing committees

The Trinamool Congress has lost the chairmanships of two key Indian parliamentary standing committees after the panels were reconstituted on Saturday, October 3, 2026. Rajya Sabha Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced the changes.

BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi replaced TMC’s Dola Sen as chairperson of the commerce committee. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, identified in the supplied material as the leader of a TMC rebel faction, replaced former party colleague Kirti Azad as chairperson of the committee on chemicals and fertilisers. Several other chairpersons retained their posts.

DMK MPs Tiruchi Siva and K. Kanimozhi continued to lead the committees on industry and food, consumer affairs and public distribution respectively. Some BJP allies also remained in charge of panels.

JD(U)’s Sanjay Kumar Jha was retained as chairperson of the transport, tourism and culture committee, while Shiv Sena’s Shrirang Barne continued to head the energy committee. Opposition leaders retained other positions. Congress MPs Shashi Tharoor and Charanjit Singh Channi continued as chairpersons of the external affairs and agriculture committees, while Mukul Wasnik remained head of the education, women, children and youth panel.

Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Verma was retained on the health and family welfare committee. BJP’s Radha Mohan Singh was appointed chairperson of the defence committee. Other changes included BJP MP Sujeet Kumar replacing Brij Lal on the personnel, public grievances, law and justice panel, and Sudheer Gupta replacing C.M.

Ramesh as head of the railways committee. The reshuffle also left several senior BJP-led committee chairs unchanged, including Bhartruhari Mahtab on finance, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal on home affairs and Nishikant Dubey on communications and information technology.