Bihar’s former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi has replaced Bhupendra Yadav as the chairman of the Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice panel of Parliament in the latest reshuffle of the standing committees on Saturday.

The latest annual rejig also saw two top-ranking Opposition leaders—Congress’ Abhishek Singhvi and Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien shifting to the committee on home affairs at a time when the Opposition has demanded removal of junior minister for home affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which eight people were killed after a car mowed down protesting farmers in UP.

The reshuffle, for the first time, saw at least 28 Rajya Sabha MPs being shifted out of their existing panels due to poor attendance, according to a senior official.

Out of the 237 Rajya Sabha members nominated by Chairman Venkaiah Naidu for the 24 department-related standing committees for 2021-22, a total of 50 members of the Upper House also have been placed in new committees.

“This includes 28 members who had poor attendance in the meetings of committees held during 2020-21. 12 of these 28 members didn’t attend any meeting in the last one year due to Covid-19 or elections,” said a senior Rajya Sabha official.

Yadav became the Union minister of environment and sciences and labour minister in July this year.

Most of the changes involving 50 members of the Rajya Sabha were suggested by the respective parties. Among the major changes, Chaya Devi Verma has moved from Agriculture to Social Justice and Empowerment while Prof Manoj Kumar Jha of RJD has shifted from Railways to Labour. Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohel will join the transport panel from IT committee while BJD’s Sasmit Patra is now in the education committee from the law and justice committee.

Trinamool’s Mausam Noor goes from Commerce to Water Resources panel and world champion in boxing, nominated member MC Mary Kom, has opted for Urban Development panel from the food body. Indu Bala Goswami will be in health panel.

There are 24 standing committees and each panel has 11 members of Rajya Sabha and 20 of Lok Sabha.

“All three Shiv Sena members in the Rajya Sabha got new panels. Sanjay Raut moves to External Affairs from Defence, Anil Desai from Coal and Steel to Commerce and Priyanka Chaturvedi from Commerce to Transport, Tourism and Culture. All 3 had good attendance last year,” said another official.

Data for Rajya Sabha members suggest that 9 BJP members, 6 from Trinamool, Congress (4), 3 members each from Sena, CPM, RJD, YSRCP and 2 each from DMK,BJD and TRS have been shifted to new panels as per the consultations with the parties. All other parties have seen at least one member shifting to other panels.