61 Rajya Sabha Members to Take Oath on July 22, Scindia, Digvijaya Singh and Shibu Soren being few of them.

Newly elected 61 Rajya Sabha members from 20 states will be taking oath on July 22nd. The oath-taking ceremony would be held in the chamber of the House. Members who are unable to take the oath on that day will do so during the upcoming Monsoon session.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Mallikarjun Kharge, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Shibu Soren are among the few 61 Rajya Sabha MPs.

Between March and June, Rajya Sabha elections were held for 61 seats, of which 42 members were elected unopposed in March. Elections were also held on June 19 for some of the seats. Rajya Sabha elections were held for vacant seats in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur among other states.

43 of the 61 Rajya Sabha members, comprising 72 per cent, have been elected to the Upper House for the first time. Only 12 of the 61 members who had completed their tenure have been re-elected. The BJP fielded most of the new faces this time. Jyotiraditya Scindia, who left Congress to join the BJP, was successful in winning the election on a BJP ticket from Madhya Pradesh.

At present, BJP has 86 members in the Rajya Sabha. The party has won 11 out of 61 seats, taking the BJP’s tally in the Upper House from 75 to 86. The BJP-led NDA has 113 members, including nominated and independent MPs. A tally of 123 members is required for a majority in the 245-member Rajya Sabha. BJP is also supported by parties outside the NDA such as the BJD and the YSR Congress.