Guwahati: Former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Misa Bharti and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajeev Shukla took their oaths as Rajya Sabha members on Monday along with 25 other leaders.
The other people who took oath today included A Rao Meena, Vijay Sai Reddy, Kheeru Mahto, Shambhala Saran Patel, Ranjeet Ranjan, Maharashtra Majhi, Aditya Prasad, Praful Patel, Imran Pratapgarhi, Sanjay Raut, Sasmit Patra, Sandeep Kumar Pathak and Vikramjeet Singh Sahani, Randeep Singh Surjewal, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, R Girl Rajan, S Kalyan Sundaram, KRN Rajesh Kumar, Javed Ali Khan, and V Vijendra Prasad.
Meanwhile, former athlete P T Usha and legendary music composer Ilaiyaraaja were unable to attend today’s oath ceremony.
These were a part of the first day of the Parliament’s Monsoon session. Later, obituary references for a number of recently deceased luminaries were also read.
The Rajya Sabha also paid respects to former Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, former UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Moreover, the House also paid obituaries to former members including Kishore Kumar Mohanty, Robert Kharshiing, K K Veerappan and santoor player Pandit Shivkumar Sharma.
Later, the Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody placed a statement—written in both Hindi and English—on the table that listed the bills that had been approved by the President and were passed by the Houses of Parliament during the 256th session of the Rajya Sabha.
The members of the opposition party caused a commotion in the House later on following the interruption of the proceedings that caused the House to adjourn for the day.