Sonia Gandhi, Ashwini Vaishnaw among 14 sworn in as RS members

New Delhi: Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw were among the 14 who were sworn in as members of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

The oath was administered by Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar in the new Parliament house building.

Having completed 25 years in the Lok Sabha, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi will now represent Rajasthan in the Council of States by filling the seat that fell vacant after 91-year-old former Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh completed his tenure on April 3.

Sonia Gandhi will be the second member of the Gandhi family to enter the Rajya Sabha after former Prime Minister and her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who had a two-and-a-half-year tenure (from August 1964 to February 1967) as a member of the Upper House.

Sonia Gandhi took oath as a member of the Upper House in the presence of leader of the House Piyush Goyal and Congress president, as well as leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge. Her daughter, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, also witnessed the ceremony.

Sanjay Kumar Jha, the national general secretary of JD (U) and former Bihar minister, known for his close association with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, also took oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Among the 14 members who took oath were Congress' Ajay Maken and Syed Naseer Hussain representing Karnataka, BJP's R P N Singh from Uttar Pradesh and Samik Bhattacharya from West Bengal.

Subhashish Khuntia and Debashish Samantaray, both from BJD, took oath as members from Odisha, while Madan Rathore of BJP will represent Rajasthan in the Upper House.

YSRCP leaders Golla Baburao, Meda Raghunadha Reddy, and Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy took oath and will represent Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, BRS leader Ravi Chandra Vaddiraju from Telangana also began his RS innings.

Following the ceremony, all members participated in a group photograph with the Rajya Sabha Chairman.

Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh and secretary general P C Mody were also present during the ceremony.