Congress MP Rahul Gandhi continues his role on Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence, while first-time MP Kangana Ranaut has been appointed to the committee on Information Technology, according to a notification released by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat on Thursday.

Gandhi, who also serves as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was part of the Defence Committee in the previous Lok Sabha. The committee will be chaired by BJP MP Radha Mohan Singh. The Congress has been given the leadership of four committees, including the External Affairs Committee, which will be headed by former Foreign Minister and four-time Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor.

The Congress will chair committees on Education, Women, Children, Youth, and Sports, led by Digvijaya Singh; Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Food Processing, headed by former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Channi; and Rural and Panchayati Raj, chaired by Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka.

Members of the ruling BJP will oversee several key committees, including Defence, Finance, Home, and Coal, Mines, and Steel, as well as Communications and IT, in which Ranaut is a member. The Home Affairs Committee will be led by Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, while Bhartruhari Mahtab, who previously served as Pro-Tem Speaker, will head the Standing Committee on Finance.

Former Union ministers Anurag Thakur and Rajiv Pratap Rudy will lead the committees on Coal, Mines, and Steel, and Water Resources, respectively, while Nishikant Dubey will take charge of the Communications and IT committee. In the previous Lok Sabha, Dubey and Congress’ Shashi Tharoor had sparred over Facebook’s hate speech policies, which resulted in Dubey replacing Tharoor as the committee chair in 2022.

Among other opposition parties, the Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan will join Ranaut on the Communications and IT committee. Priyanka Chaturvedi from the Shiv Sena faction led by former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will also join them, along with Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra, whose disqualification from the last Lok Sabha garnered significant attention.

Tiruchi Siva and Kanimozhi from Tamil Nadu’s DMK will chair the Industry and Consumer Affairs and Food and Public Distribution committees, respectively.

Several BJP allies have also been appointed to lead panels. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU, both crucial allies of the BJP, will oversee the Housing and Urban Affairs and Transport, Tourism, and Culture committees. These two parties collectively secured 28 Lok Sabha seats and helped the BJP form the government.

The BJP’s Maharashtra allies—Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction of the Shiv Sena and his deputy Ajit Pawar’s NCP group—will chair the Energy and Petroleum and Natural Gas committees. The assembly elections in the state are slated for November.

Each department-related standing committee, which comprises members from both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, functions as a ‘mini parliament,’ monitoring the operations of their respective ministries.