An alert Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday detected a faux pas that inadvertently missed the Upper House secretariat’s scrutiny. The matter is related to Jaggeesh, elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka. He had taken oath along with others in the Rajya Sabha chamber on July 8 when the House was not in session. But he did so in the name of Raghavendra Swamy.
On Monday, his name was again in the list of members scheduled for oath taking. But this time round, his name was listed as Jaggeesh.Recalling that Jaggeesh had taken the oath earlier, Naidu pointed it out and asked the Rajya Sabha secretariat officials to see if it is in order. After due examination, the RS officials submitted to Naidu that it was not in order and the member needs to take oath again.
Complying with norms, Jaggeesh took oath again in the House with all others. "While taking the oath, one should read the prescribed form. Any deviation will make their oath invalid. I don't want to name anybody, one of the members has to take the oath again today because of such deviation," he said without naming anyone.
Naidu said nothing other than the prescribed oath will be part of the record. "And, secondly, it will invalidate your oath. If somebody questions, then it will be a problem also. Please keep this in mind and also follow my advice."
He also directed the officials to ensure such goof ups do not recur. At the same time, he asked the members to get registered only their official name for proceedings and all practical purpose in the Parliament. Earlier in the day when Monsoon Session started, several members including former finance minister P Chidambaram and cricketer-turn-politician Harbhajan Singh were among the 28 recently elected Rajya Sabha MPs who took oath.
Kapil Sibal, Chidambaram's former colleague in the previous UPA government, also took oath as a member of the Upper House.
Sibal quit Congress and was elected to Rajya Sabha as an independent candidate from Uttar Pradesh with the support of the Samajwadi Party. Harbhajan Singh, who was elected to the Upper House from Punjab as Aam Adami Party (AAP) nominee, took oath in Punjabi. Others who took oath were Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut, former Union minister Praful Patel, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti and Congress leader Rajeev Shukla.
The list also included YSRCP's Masthan Rao Beeda and V Vijayasai Reddy, RJD's Faiyaz Ahmad, JD-U's Khiru Mahto, JMM's Mahua Maji, BJD's Sasmit Patra, AAP's Sandeep Kumar Pathak and Vikramjit Singh Sahney DMK's R Girirajan, S Kalyanasundaram and KRN Rajeshkumar as well as AIADMK's C Ve Shanmugam, and Javed Ali Khan of the SP.
BJP's Shambhu Sharan Patel, Aditya Prasad and Jaggesh, as well as Congress leaders Ranjeet Ranjan, Pramod Kumar and Imran Pratapgarhi and nominated member V Vijayendra Prasad took oath too.
The Chairman asked members taking oath to go back to their respective seats after signing member's register and not start exchanging pleasantries with other leaders. "Meeting and greeting can be done afterwards," he said.