Among the 14 people sworn in as RS members were Sonia Gandhi and Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi: Among the 14 people sworn in as Rajya Sabha members on Thursday were former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar took the oath at the newly constructed Parliament House edifice.

Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress Parliamentary Party, has served for 25 years in the Lok Sabha. She will now represent Rajasthan in the Council of States, taking up the seat that became empty on April 3 after 91-year-old former Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh’s term.

After her mother-in-law and former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, who served in the Upper House for two and a half years (from August 1964 to February 1967), Sonia Gandhi will be the second member of the Gandhi family to join the Rajya Sabha.
In the presence of Congress president Piyush Goyal, the head of the House, and Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Sonia Gandhi took an oath of office as a member of the Upper House. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, her daughter, was present at the event as well.
On Thursday, Sanjay Kumar Jha, a former minister from Bihar and national general secretary of JD (U), who is well-known for his close relationship with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, also took an oath of office as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
The BJP’s R. P. N. Singh from Uttar Pradesh, Samik Bhattacharya from West Bengal, and Congressmen Ajay Maken and Syed Naseer Hussain from Karnataka were among the 14 members who took an oath of office.
BJD members Subhashish Khuntia and Debashish Samantaray swore oaths to represent Odisha in the Upper House, while BJP member Madan Rathore will represent Rajasthan.
Golla Baburao, Meda Raghunadha Reddy, and Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy, the leaders of the YSRCP, took an oath to serve as Andhra Pradesh’s representatives.
Concurrently, Telangana’s Ravi Chandra Vaddiraju, the head of the BRS, started his RS innings.
Every member took part in a group picture with the Rajya Sabha Chairman after the event.
P. C. Mody, secretary general, and Harivansh, deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, were also present at the event.