Govt has Decided to End Tradition of Oppn Party Chairing External Affairs Panel, Says Shashi Tharoor

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, the chairman of the External Affairs Committee in the previous Lok Sabha, on Friday claimed that the government has decided to end the tradition of Opposition party chairing the parliamentary panel.

Tharoor also took a jibe at the Modi government, saying a BJP MP will now hold the BJP government accountable instead. "It's official: Government has decided to end the tradition of the leading Opposition party chairing the External Affairs Committee. Apparently a BJP MP will now hold the BJP Govt accountable instead," he said in a tweet. "One more blow to our soft power, image and international reputation as a mature democracy," Tharoor said.

However, what prompted him to tweet on the matter was not known as there was no official confirmation on the constitution and chairing of the committee.

In a tweet on Tuesday, the former Union minister had said in the entire history of Parliamentary Standing Committees, the Committee on External Affairs has always been headed by an Opposition Lok Sabha MP.

"Our tradition is foreign policy bipartisanship: our political differences stop at the nation's borders. Dismaying," he had said, tagging a media report that claimed that the government may deny the Congress chairmanship of the standing committees of finance and external affairs it held in the last Lok Sabha.