Union minister Piyush Goyal was on 14 July named the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha. Piyush Goyal, who held the post of deputy floor leader for Rajya Sabha, will succeed senior BJP leader Thaawarchand Gehlot as the Leader of the House.
Veteran BJP leader and former union minister Thaawarchand Gehlot on 12 July took oath as the 19th governor of Karnataka succeeding Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala.
Piyush Goyal, who holds key portfolios in the union government, has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2010.
Over the last two years, Piyush Goyal has played an active part in BJP’s efforts in the Rajya Sabha to negotiate with opposition parties not aligned with Indian National Congress (INC) and fence-sitters like BJD, AIADMK.
Bhupender Yadav, now a cabinet minister and a lawyer by profession, was in the race for the post of the Leader of House in Rajya Sabha. Yadav had earned the sobriquet of “committee man” due to his expertise on parliamentary select committees.
Meanwhile, top sources in the INC said that Rahul Gandhi might replace Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as the leader of the party in Lok Sabha. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has been the leader of the INC in the Lok Sabha since June 2019. The names of MPs Manish Tewari from Ludhiana, Shashi Tharoor from Kerala, Gaurav Gogoi from Assam, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Punjab and Uttam Kumar Reddy from Telangana are doing the rounds too.
Sources claimed former INC president Rahul Gandhi would not take up the position. However, a senior INC leader, preferring anonymity, said Rahul Gandhi was still in the reckoning.
The monsoon session of the parliament begins on 19 July. The INC party is expected to demand an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the Rafale deal during the session. The Rafale issue is back on the INC’s agenda after a French court ordered an investigation into alleged corruption in the Rs 59,000 crore deal.
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