Naidu, Chidambaram, Amar Singh, others take oath in RS

New Delhi, July 18: Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman and M Venkaiah Naidu, former finance Minister P Chidambaram as well as SP leader Amar Singh were among 43 newly-elected and re-elected members of Rajya Sabha who took oath today.

New Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, former telecom minister Kapil Sibal, former minister and NCP leader Praful Patel, JD-U leader Sharad Yadav and RJD strongman Lalu Prasad's daughter Misha Bharti were the other prominent members who took oath.

Eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani and former ministers Ambika Soni and Beni Prasad Verma were others who took oath in Rajya Sabha on the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament.

While members thumped desks to welcome those taking oath, Chairman Hamid Ansari greeted the newly elected with a "Welcome" and the re-elected with "Welcome Back."

Visitors galleries were packed with family members, friends and well-wishers of the members taking oath and on a couple of occasions, going against the convention, some even cheered their leaders.

After taking oath, members greeted senior leaders of various political parties including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came in midway through the oath taking.

Extending cordial welcome to the newly elected, re-elected and nominated members, Ansari said he eagerly looked forward to their valuable contribution.

Those taking oath included T G Venkatesh (TDP) who was elected to the Upper House from Andhra Pradesh. Ram Jethmalani, Misha Bharti (RJD), Gopal Narayan Singh (BJP), Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, Sharad Yadav (JDU) who were elected from Bihar too took oath.

From Chhattisgarh, Ram Vichar Netam (BJP) and Chhaya Verma (Cong) took oath while Naqvi and Mahesh Poddar (BJP) represented Jharkhand.

Sitharaman, who moved to Karnataka to get re-elected to the Upper House, took oath alongside fellow state member K C Ramamurthy. Giving Dave company from Madhya Pradesh was Vivek K Tankha (Cong).

Chidambaram, who got elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra, took oath in English. Others who took oath from this state were Piyush Goyal, Vikas Mahatme, Praful Patel, Sanjay Raut (BJP) and Vinay P Sahasrabuddhe.

Prasanna Acharya, Bishnu Charan Das and Nekkanti Bhaskar Rao, having being elected to Upper House from Odisha, took oath in Odia. Soni and Balwinder Singh Bhunder (SAD) took oath in Punjabi.

PTI