The Rajya Sabha today bid an emotional farewell to 72 retiring members, with tributes to their experience and knowledge paid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.
Sixty-five members of the retiring members were elected from 19 States, while seven were nominated to the House by the President. One-third strength of the Upper House retires every two years.
The Prime Minister commended contribution of all retiring Members and wished them well for future. He said the retiring members had invaluable experience and many of them had served several terms in the House.
He said academic knowledge had certain limits but practical experience of years was helpful in resolving problems easily. The Prime Minister said with the departure of the experienced members, responsibility of the remaining members would increase as they had to take the “story” forward.
Modi said the House was a great teacher for every member. Sometimes members feel they have made big contribution to the House, but it is a fact that they pick up a lot from the House where expression of views and sentiments is made by people from diverse regions of the country, he said.
The Prime Minister said the retiring members must convey whatever they had picked up from the House to wherever they go. At the same time, they must also record their significant contributions to the House as that would help many in future.
In celebration of 75 years of Independence and Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the Prime Minister said the retiring members should use the whole country as their platform and inspire people towards national service.
The Rajya Sabha Chairman said the 72 members were retiring during March–July this year. He said the retiring members had a total parliamentary experience of 181 terms including 143 terms in Rajya Sabha and 38 in Lok Sabha.
He termed the retiring Members as a ‘’vast pool of considerable legislative experience, domain knowledge, parliamentary skills and proven performance in the House. It is not often that such a pool of performers retire in one go.”
Naidu said several retiring members had experience of two to five terms in the House. Four ministers — Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ram Chandra Prasad — were completing their tenures.
The 72 retiring members include A K Antony, Ambika Soni, P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh, Suresh Prabhu, Praful Patel, Subramanian Swamy, Prasanna Acharya, Sanjay Raut, Naresh Gujral, Satish Chandra Mishra, M C Mary Kom, Swapan Dasgupta and Narendra Jadhav.
He recounted the contributions of some veterans and the first time members by name and referred to most of the retiring Members having kept themselves away from the tendency of disrupting the House.
Naidu however said: “It is disturbing to note that during the last over four years, this august House has lost over 35 per cent of its valuable functional time due to disruptions. This needs to be curbed before it is too late.”
Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge said the Upper House is a chamber of ideas. Several retiring members made emotional speeches recalling their experience in the House.