Actor-turned-parliamentarian Jaya Bachchan and the BJP’s Bhupendra Yadav were among a dozen newly elected or re-elected members of the Rajya Sabha who took the oath of office on Wednesday.
While 41 out of the 58 members elected/re-elected to the Upper House in elections last month had taken oath on Tuesday, 12 did so today.
However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was not sworn in even on Wednesday. His term as an MP from Gujarat ended on April 2 and he has been re-elected to the Upper House from Uttar Pradesh this time.
Mr. Jaitley was not present in the House.
Prominent among those who took oath today included Ms. Bachchan, who was re-elected on a Samajwadi Party ticket from Uttar Pradesh. Her sister Rita Verma was seated in the visitors’ gallery during the oath.
All the three BJD MPs from Odisha — Prashanta Nanda, Achyutananda Samanta and Soumya Ranjan Patnaik — took oath in Odia. TRS MPs elected from Telengana — Prakash Banda, Joginapally Santosh Kumar and Lingamaiah Yadav — took oath in Telugu.
Mr.Yadav, Kirodi Lal Meena and Madanlan Saini, also from the BJP, who were elected from Rajasthan, took oath in Hindi.
Among others who took oath were G.C. Chandrasekhar and L. Hanumanthaiah, who were elected from Karnataka on a Congress ticket.
Friends and family of members, who took oath today, were seen in the visitors’ gallery. After taking oath, the members walked up to Chairman of the House M. Venkaiah Naidu who warmly shook hands with them and then went on to sign the member’s register.
The members then greeted senior leaders present in the House.
