New Delhi: The first session of the 18th Lok Sabha began today with the oath-taking of several newly elected Members of Parliament. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who leads the Lok Sabha, was the first to take the oath, administered by Pro-tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab. Following Mr. Modi, the panel of chairpersons appointed to assist Mr. Mahtab in managing the Lok Sabha proceedings until the election of the Speaker took their oaths. BJP MPs Radha Mohan Singh and Faggan Singh Kulaste were among those who took the oath, while Congress MP K Suresh, DMK MP TR Balu, and Sudip Bandyopadhyay of TMC did not participate in the proceedings.
Subsequently, several Union Ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Manohar Lal, Piyush Goyal, Jitanram Manjhi, Rajiv Ranjan (Lallan Singh), Dr. Virendra Kumar, Kiren Rijiju, Chirag Paswan, Jyotiraditya Scindia, and Annapurna Devi, took their oaths as Lok Sabha members. Union Ministers H.D. Kumaraswamy and Pralhad Joshi took their oaths in Kannada, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram in Odia, Sarbananda Sonowal in Assamese, K. Ram Mohan Naidu and G. Kishan Reddy in Telugu, C.R. Patil in Gujarati, Prataprao Jadhav in Marathi, Dr. Jitendra Singh in Dogri, Suresh Gopi in Malayalam, Sukanta Majumdar in Bengali, and Durgadas Uikey in Sanskrit.
After the Union Ministers, other MPs took their oaths in alphabetical order based on their states and union territories. From Assam, notable figures such as Gaurav Gogoi and Rakibul Hussain of Congress, and Bijuli Kalita Medhi of BJP took their oaths. Bihar’s new MPs included Lovely Anand, Devesh Chandra Thakur (JDU), Janardan Singh Sigriwal, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Ravi Shankar Prasad (BJP), Misa Bharti (RJD), and Tariq Anwar (Congress). Congress MP Manish Tewari from Chandigarh also took the oath.
Newly elected MPs from Delhi, including Bansuri Swaraj and Manoj Tiwari, took their oaths, as did prominent figures from Himachal Pradesh, such as former Union Minister Anurag Thakur and actress Kangana Ranaut. Other notable oath-takers included BJP MPs Parshottam Rupala from Gujarat, Naveen Jindal from Haryana, and Deepender Singh Hooda from Congress.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and MPs from Madhya Pradesh and other states also took their oaths. The oath-taking ceremony will continue tomorrow to accommodate all newly elected members.