Rajya Sabha bids farewell to retiring members

New Delhi, Mar 21 (UNI) Rajya Sabha today bid a touching farewell to 61 members retiring from the House on completion of their term in April and June this year.

Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, bidding farewell to the members who are retiring, said the House would feel the absence of the retiring members who have not been renominated.

''As far as I am concerned, I have received total cooperation from all, irrespective of their political ideologies,'' he said.

Deputy Chairman K Rehman Khan, whose term is also coming to an end but is set to reenter the House again, said all these Members had made valuable contribution.

Nilotpal Basu and Dipankar Mukherjee (both CPI(M)), who have completed two and three terms respectively, said their tenures in the House were a ''valuable learning experience.'' Mr Basu said he regretted if he ever sounded rude to the members during heated debates while Mr Mukherjee conceded that his way of expression itself was argumentative but he meant no offences to any member. ''I was a PSU worker and if somebody says that the people in Government don't work, it hurts me. Don't we have a system working in this House, where a member is able to retrieve any of his speeches made in even at a short notice. We have shown that things can work if one works for a system,'' he said.

BJP backbencher Kirpal Parmar said his six years in the House passed ''like six minutes.'' ''I came here empty handed but go out with a lot of love and affection", he said, and thanked three MLAs of Himachal Assembly who had cross voted him to the Rajya Sabha. Mr Vasant Chavan (Shiv Sena), who entered the House through a byelection 10 months ago, confessed that he was a person who occupied a post of profit when he entered the House.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Mrs Kumkum Rai and Mr Vijay Sagar Nishad (both RJD), Mrs Jamnadevi Barupal (Congress) and RBS Verma (BJP).

UNI SU/MCN VD HS1328