India Constitutes Joint Parliamentary Committee to Review Foreign Contribution Regulation Bill

NEW DELHI: Weeks after the government referred the contentious Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 , to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC), a 31-member panel was constituted on Thursday, with BJP's Sanjay Jaiswal named as its chairperson. On August 12, both Houses of Parliament adopted motions to refer the Bill to a JPC , even as Opposition parties maintained that the proposed legislation targets minorities and NGOs and demanded that it be withdrawn altogether. The government had rejected the charge, challenging the Opposition to identify any provision that discriminates against minorities. The panel, constituted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, has 14 members from the BJP and five from Congress. It also has two members each from JD(U), TMC and DMK, and one member each from SP, IUML, Shiv Sena, NCP (SP), NCP and TDP. While BJP's Jaiswal is the chairperson, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Tejasvi Surya, Kamlesh Jangde, Mukeshkumar Chandrakaant Dalal, Nishikant Dubey, Vishnu Dayal Ram, Ananta Nayak and Arvind Dharmapuri are the members from the ruling party in the Lok Sabha. Congress' Lok Sabha members who are part of the panel include Anto Antony, Captain Viriato Fernandes, Muhammed Hamdullah Sayeed and Kali Charan Munda. Zia Ur Rehman (SP), Kalyan Banerjee (TMC), A Raja (DMK), Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu (TDP), Naresh Ganpat Mhaske (Shiv Sena), Kaushalendra Kumar (JD-U), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP) and ET Mohammed Basheer (IUML) are other members of the panel from the Lok Sabha.