The Congress on Tuesday demanded that the Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2026, be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance for detailed scrutiny, accusing the Narendra Modi government of systematically bypassing the committee system to avoid wider consultation on key legislations.Congress general secretary in-charge communications and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh said Opposition parties in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha had sought the Bill’s reference to the Standing Committee and expressed hope that the government would accept the demand.Ramesh alleged that Parliament’s committee system had been steadily weakened under the Modi government, citing a sharp decline in the number of Bills referred for detailed examination.”Between 2019 and 2024, only 16 per cent of Bills were referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees. Between 2009 and 2014, under Manmohan Singh, 71 per cent of Bills were referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees,” he said.The Congress leader further alleged that the government had increasingly preferred constituting Joint Committees of Parliament headed by BJP MPs instead of referring Bills to Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committees chaired by Opposition members.According to Ramesh, this approach was adopted in legislations related to biodiversity protection and forest conservation. He claimed that the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, was also deliberately referred to a Joint Committee headed by a BJP MP instead of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, which was then chaired by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh.Drawing a comparison with the UPA government, Ramesh said landmark legislations such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, were referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees headed by BJP leaders, including Kalyan Singh and Sumitra Mahajan, for wider consultation before being enacted.