Don’t bother about numbers, your word is valuable: Modi to Opp
New Delhi: Leader of the House and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah were among those who took oath as Members of the 17th Lok Sabha that commenced here on Monday.
As soon as the House met, the Members stood in silence for a few minutes as per the convention “to mark the solemn occasion of the first sitting of the 17th Lok Sabha”.
When Modi’s name was called out by the Secretary General for taking oath, Members from the ruling NDA thumped the desk greeting the Prime Minister with slogans such as ‘Modi Modi’ and “Bharat Mata ki Jai. The panel of presiding officers – K Suresh, Brijbhushan Sharan Singh and B Mehtab – took oath as Members after the Prime Minister. Earlier the new session began with playing of the National Anthem.
BJP MP sworn in as protem speaker
Before the House met, Virendra Kumar was sworn in as Pro-Tem Speaker by President Ramnath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Oath in different
languages
While the Prime Minister and most of Union Ministers took oath in Hindi, Union Ministers Harsh Vardhan, Sripad Naik, Ashwini Chaubey and Pratap Chandra Sarangi took oath in Sanskrit.
While D V Sadananda Gowda and Prahlad Joshi took oath in Kannada, Harsimrat Kaur Badal took oath in Punjabi. Union Ministers Arvind Ganpat Sawant, Raosaheb Patil Danbe took oath in Marathi, Jitendra Singh in Dogri, Babul Supriyo in English, Rameshwar Teli in Assamese and Debashree Choudhury in Bangla. BJD leader Mehtab took oath in Odiya.
UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, and DMK leaders Kanizmohi and A Raja were present in the House on the occasion. Congress President Rahul Gandhi was not seen when the House met.
Several members took oath in their mother tongue, like most of the YSR Congress Party MPs in Telegu. Many members from Assam took oath in Assamese. BJP members from Bihar Gopal jee Thakur and Ashok Kumar Yadav took oath in Madhubani.
BJP member from Bihar Jarnardhan Singh Sigriwal expressed desire to take oath in Bhojpuri, but the Lok Sabha Secretary General said the language was not in the eight schedule of the Constitution.
Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah thumped the desk as Tapir Gao from Arunachal Pradesh approached the mike stand to take oath.
Secretary General of Lok Sabha Snehlata Shrivastava by mistake called petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan to take oath and soon rectified it as the latter is a Rajya Sabha Member.
PM addresses House
Reaching out to the opposition on the first day of the monsoon session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said they need not “bother about their numbers” as their every word is “valuable” to the government. He urged all MPs to be impartial in the House and address issues related to the larger interest of the nation.
Addressing the media outside parliament before the commencement of the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha, Modi said, “When we come to Parliament, we should forget ‘paksh’ (treasury) and ‘vipaksh’ (opposition). We should think about issues with a ‘nishpaksh’ (impartial) spirit and work in the larger interest of the nation.” Underlining the importance of an active opposition in a parliamentary democracy, Modi said he hopes the opposition “will speak actively and participate in House proceedings… I am hopeful that this session will be productive.”
“The role of an opposition and an active opposition is important perquisite in a parliamentary democracy. The opposition need not bother about their numbers. I hope they speak actively and participate in House proceedings…their every word…every feeling is valuable to us,” he said.
Talking about the newly constituted Lok Sabha, Modi said it is historic in various terms as maximum number of women MPs have been elected to the lower house since the Independence.
Modi said as this is the first session with new members, there will be a flow of new energy and a new enthusiasm will be reflected in the House to realise the aspirations of the people.
The prime minister said his government worked on the principle of ‘sabka sath, sabka vikas’ (with all, development for all) during his first term and people reposed their faith in it for a second time. As a result, a government has been reelected with a clear majority after several decades, he said. (PTI)