17 new members of Rajya Sabha take oath

New Delhi, Apr 3: Seventeen new members of the Rajya Sabha, including Deputy Chairman K Rehman Khan, Union Law Minister H R Bhardwaj and former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, took oath today.

The oath was administered by Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat in his Chamber in Parliament House.

The other members who were sworn in are : Mr S S Ahluwalia (BJP--Jharkhand), Mr Vinay Katiyar (BJP--UP), Ms Mabel Rebello (INC--Jharkhand), Mr G Sanjeeva Reddy (INC--Andhra Pradesh), Dr Mahendra Prasad (JDU--Bihar), Mr Shree Gopal Vyas (BJP-- Chhatisgarh), Mr Pravinchandra Somabhai Rashtrapal (INC--Gujarat), Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar (IND--Karnataka), Mr Balihari (BSP--Uttar Pradesh), Mahmood Madani (RLD--Uttar Pradesh), Mr Munkad (BSP--Uttar Pradesh), Moinul Hassan Ahamed (CPIM--West Bengal), Mr Saman Pathak (CPI(M)--West Bengal) and Mr Tapan Kumar Sen (CPI(M)--West Bengal).

While, Mr Rehman Khan (INC--Karnataka), Mr Bhardwaj, Mr Ahluwalia, Mr Mahendra Prasad and Ms Mabel Rebello were re-elected to the House, Mr Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena--Maharashtra), Mr Vinay Katiyar and others joined the House for the first time.

Ms Rebello was earlier elected from Chhattisgarh. This time she entered the House from Jharkhand.

Eighteen newly-elected members were scheduled to take oath today. However, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde (Congress) who was also to take oath, did not attend the ceremony. This is the first batch of the newly-elected Rajya Sabha members who were administered the oath today. The rest will be sworn in tomorrow.

Those who were sworn in today included five from the Congress, three each from the BJP and CPI(M), two from BSP and one each from the Shiv Sena, JDU, RLD and an Independent.

The brief ceremony was attended among others by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Pachauri and CPI(M) leaders Brinda Karat and Dipankar Mukherjee.

UNI