India / Sonia Gandhi reconstitutes Congress' Parliamentary groups

New Delhi: Ahead of Monsoon session of Parliament, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Sunday reconstituted groups of its MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in order to facilitate and ensure the effective functioning of  party in both House of the Parliament.

"As chairperson of the CPP, | have decided to reconstitute the following groups to facilitate and ensure the effective functioning of our party in both Houses of Parliament. These groups will meet daily during the session and can meet during the

inter-session periods as well where Parliament issues are concerned," Gandhi said in a letter.

The reconstituted group of Lok Sabha includes:

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury- Leader

Gaurav Gogoi- Deputy Leader

K. Suresh- Chief Whip

Manish Tewari

Shashi Tharoor

Ravneet Singh Bittu- Whip

Manickam Tagore- Whip

The reconstituted group of Rajya Sabha includes:

Mallikarjun Kharge- Leader

Anand Sharma- Deputy Leader

Jairam Ramesh- Chief Whip

Ambika Soni

P. Chidambaram

Digvijaya Singh

K.C. Venugopal

Joint meetings of these groups can be convened as and when needed, Gandhi said. Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader Rajya Sabha shall be the convener of the joint meeting. 

Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi physically met his new Cabinet in the second such meeting after the Cabinet reshuffle on July 7, with the induction of 43 new ministers, and asked them to come prepared for the Monsoon session and effectively put forward the government's views and details of the work in both the Houses. 

On Tuesday, the government had reconstituted the cabinet committees under which Union ministers Smriti Irani, Bhupender Yadav and Sarbananda Sonowal were included in the all-important Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs and Union ministers Virendra Kumar, Kiren Rijiju and Anurag Singh Thakur were also included in the rejigged Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.