New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday constituted the House Privileges Committee for the 18th session of Lok Sabha, appointing BJP leader and former Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as its chairman.
This is the first time that members will be appointed to the committee in the 18th Lok Sabha.
The 15-member committee includes eight representatives from the ruling National Democratic Alliance and seven from the opposition. The committee deals with complaints of abuse of privilege by lawmakers against officials as well as against their fellow lawmakers. The committee will enter into force as of Tuesday.
Apart from Prasad, the BJP members on the committee are Brijmohan Agrawal, Jagadish Shettar, Ramveer Singh Bidhuri, Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo, Jagdambika Pal and Trivendra Singh Rawat.
Opposition members include Congress leaders Tariq Anwar, Manickam Tagore, Manish Tiwari and T.R. DMK’s Balu, Trinamool Congress’ Kalyan Banerjee, Shiv Sena MP Shrirang Appa Chandu Barney, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Ganpat Sawant and Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav.
However, Congress MP Manickam Tagore, who was appointed as a member of the committee, said he could not attend the meeting as it was suspended. “I am suspended. I cannot attend the committee meeting,” Tagore posted on X.
Tagore is among eight opposition MPs who have been suspended for the remainder of the budget session. The second phase of the course will begin on March 9 and end on April 2.
The committee was set up amid repeated threats to breach notices of privileges exchanged between the Treasury and the Opposition Benches in recent sessions.
During the last Budget session, the BJP had initially planned to move a breach of privilege notice against Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi over alleged misleading statements against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the plan was dropped at that time because the Concessions Committee had not yet been formed.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey later moved a substantive motion against Gandhi, leading to unrest in the House.
