27 new Rajya Sabha MPs take oath; PM Modi to meet them today

Visuals from Rajya Sabha

On Friday, as many as 27 of the 57 members elected to the Rajya Sabha in the recent biennial polls took the oath of allegiance to the Constitution, as required to begin functioning as members of the Council of States.

PM Modi is supposed to meet newly-elected Rajya Sabha MPs today at around 4:30 pm.

They took oath in the presence of Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu in the chamber of Rajya Sabha.

• The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 18 Rajya Sabha MPs among the 27 who took their oath today.

These 27 members from 10 states took their oaths in different languages, including Hindi (12 members), English (4), two each in Sanskrit, Kannada, Marathi, and Oriya, and one each in Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu. Four of the 57 newly elected members have recently taken their oath of office.

The newly elected or re-elected Members who took oath/affirmation today include Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. While Goyal has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, Sitharaman has been re-elected from Karnataka.

• Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Vivek K Tankha and Mukul Wasnik also took oath as members of the Upper House. Ramesh has been elected from Karnataka, Wasnik from Rajasthan and Tankha from Madhya Pradesh.

BJP leaders Surendra Nagar, K Laxman, Laxmikant Vajpayee and Kalpana Saini, Baburam Nishad elected from Uttar Pradesh, Dhananjay Madhu from Maharashtra and Ghanshyam Tiwari from Rajasthan took oath today.

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RJD) leader Jayant Chaudhary, Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Sulata Deo and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) leader R Dharmar were also administered oath as Rajya Sabha MPs.

• A total of 14 of the 57 members were re-elected to the House.

The remaining MPs who did not take the oath today are expected to do so on the first day of Parliament's monsoon session.

During the oath-taking ceremony, BJP national president JP Nadda and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan were present.

Notably, close to 72 members of the Rajya Sabha will retire by the month of July from the Upper House.