Retiring RS members have vast legislative experience : Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi : The Rajya Sabha Chairman on Thursday said the 72 members retiring from the Upper House comprise a vast pool of considerable legislative experience, domain knowledge, parliamentary skills and proven performance. He urged the legislators across the country to be driven by ‘passion, performance and procedural integrity’ and desist from disrupting the law-making bodies and uphold the honour and privilege bestowed on them by the people. He urged the elected representatives to ensure that the expectations and aspirations of the people are incorporated in designing of the laws and policies while he voiced concern over the House having lost more than 35 per cent of the time due to disruptions since 2017.Bidding farewell to the 72 members retiring during March-July this year, Naidu informed the House that the retiring members have a total parliamentary experience of 181 terms, including 143 terms in Rajya Sabha and 38 in Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha Chairman said 27 members accounting for 38 per cent of those retiring have the experience of serving two or more terms in the Rajya Sabha whereas four Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ramchandra Prasad have completed their term during this period.

Chairman of five of the eight department-related Standing Committees of Rajya Sabha and leaders of four parties are also among the retiring members while another 45 members will retire after serving one term in the Upper House. Referring to the performances of retiring Rajya Sabha members, Naidu informed that 84-year-old S.R. Balasubramoniyan is the lone member, who has attended all the 234 sittings of the House during the 12 sessions from the 244th session in 2017 till the winter session in 2021 (255th session), demonstrating that passion and sincerity defy age. Appreciating the performance of several first-time members retiring on Thursday, the Upper House Chairman said the promise shown by them was characterised by BJD member Sasmit Patra by quickly adapting to the nuances of the functioning of the House. He also referred to the contributions of BJP lawmakers T.G. Venkatesh, Vinay P. Sahasrabuddhe and YSR Congress Party MP V. Vijayasai Reddy for substantially improving the working of departmental committees chaired by them, despite being first-time members of the House. 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. Sixty-five retiring members represented 19 states while seven are nominated members.