The Upper House i.e. Rajya Sabha will bid farewell to its 72 retiring members on Thursday. Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bid farewell to the members on the occasion. Leader of the House Piyush Goyal and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge will also be present. These retiring members include seven nominated members.
Chairman Naidu announced in the House on Wednesday that there would be no Zero Hour and Question Hour in the House on Thursday. Leaders and members of various parties will be given a chance to speak at the farewell function.
Members retiring in April include Deputy Leader of Congress in the House Anand Sharma, AK Antony, BJP leaders Subramanian Swamy, MC Mary Kom and Swapan Dasgupta. The tenure of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Suresh Prabhu, MJ Akbar, Jairam Ramesh, Vivek Tankha, V. Vijayasai Reddy will end in June.
The members to retire in July include Piyush Goyal, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, P. Chidambaram, Ambika Soni, Kapil Sibal, Satish Chandra Mishra, Sanjay Raut, Praful Patel and KJ Alphons. Some Union Ministers and BJP leaders to be re-nominated
At the same time, the position is not clear on the re-nomination of some members of Congress. Many of these members are part of dissident groups which have been critical of the party leadership.