Congress leader Shashi Tharoor-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology was barred by the Lok Sabha Speaker from holding its scheduled meeting on Wednesday, while the scheduled meetings of other Committees were held.

Tharoor said that the Speaker had asked him on Wednesday morning to postpone the meeting of the IT Committee in view of a whip issued by BJP to its Rajya Sabha members which would make it impossible for them to attend and, therefore, he deferred it to December 13.

He asked the Speaker if the meetings of all the Standing Committees scheduled for Wednesday have been deferred on the same ground, that is, unavailability of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MPs, the Speaker affirmed it.

However, Tharoor later found out that the meetings of all others meeting were held as per schedule, and on top of that, the matter of data protection had been referred to a Joint Select Committee of both Houses chaired by a BJP member.

"I specifically asked the Speaker whether his request (to postpone Committee’s meeting) affected all Committee meetings scheduled for today. He assured me it did. I am shocked to learn that the other Committees held their meetings and ours was the only one not allowed to meet,” Tharoor shared on Twitter.