Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs drops Smriti Irani from panel

On 16 July, Smriti Irani was dropped as a special invitee from the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA), while Prakash Javadekar, her successor, was elevated to member status.

Najma Heptulla, the minority affairs minister who had resigned from the Union Cabinet earlier this week, is no more a member of the panel as well.

In the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Irani was shifted from the HRD ministry to textiles.

Javadekar was earlier a special invitee to the committee.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, the new law minister, replaces his predecessor DV Sadananda Gowda in the panel.

Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who has been divested of his minister of state for parliamentary affairs portfolio, too has been dropped as a special invitee and replaced by SS Ahluwalia who is now the junior minister in the ministry.

Newly-inducted minister of state in the law ministry PP Chaudhary has also been made a special invitee.

The CCPA, headed by home minister Rajnath Singh, is mandated to recommend the dates of Parliament sessions. It has 11 members, including three special invitees.

Other members are Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Ram Vilas Paswan and Ananth Kumar.

Minister of state for parliamentary affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is another special invitee, a fresh list issued by the Cabinet Secretariat said.

--PTI