JOIN USPolitical heavy-weights like former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley, Telegu matinee idol Chiranjeevi and former India hockey captain Dileep Tirkey were among 50 new Rajya Sabha members who took oath on Tuesday.
Other bigwigs include Union Cabinet Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh and Rajiv Shukla, former deputy chairpersons of the Upper House K Rehman Khan and Najma Heptullah; film actress and Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bhaduri and businessman Rajiv Chandrasekhar, who established telecom major BPL.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who sat through almost an hour-long proceedings. Chairman Hamid Ansari greeted everybody and welcomed them to the Upper House.
Members like Rehman Khan (Kannada), Tapan Sen (Bengali), Deshmukh (Marathi) and Shadi Lal Batra (Punjabi), took the oath in their mother tongue. Others preferred Hindi and English.
Najma Heptullah, who was elected on BJP ticket from Madhya Pradesh, took oath in Urdu. As Heptullah moved towards the mike when her name was called, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar remarked she was a true nationalist, having being elected to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan, Maharasthra and Madhya Pradesh.
Jaitley, re-elected from Gujarat, was the first to take the oath. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati possibly received the maximum attention. She was greeted by leaders from all political parties even before the House met.
Other new faces
Other prominent new members include Renuka Chaudhary, S Jaipal Reddy and Satyavrat Chaturvedi from the Congress and M Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Vinay Katiyar of the BJP.
An interesting new face would be Kiranmany Nanda (SP) who was a fisheries minister in the Left Front government in West Bengal for decades and was the only dedicated fisheries minister in the country for a very long time.