Congress’s Behed absent, six MLAs take oath in Sanskrit
Tuesday, 22 March 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The Protem Speaker of Vidhan Sabha, Banshidhar Bhagat administered the oath of office to the newly elected MLAs in Vidhan Sabha on Monday. Prior to this Bhagat was administered oath as protem speaker by the governor of Uttarakhand Lieutenant General (retd) Gurmit Singh at Raj Bhawan. All the newly elected MLAs barring the Kichha MLA Tilak Raj Behed took oath of office on the day. Behed who was said to be indisposed would take oath on a later date. With the oath taking ceremony the fifth elected assembly in Uttarakhand has come into existence. Out of the 69 MLAs, six members including the Kotdwar MLA Ritu Khanduri, Ranikhet MLA Pramod Nainwal, former speaker and Rishikesh MLA Prem Chand Agarwal, Rudraprayag MLA Bharat Chaudhary, Chaubattakhal MLA Satpal Maharaj and Tharali MLA Bhopal Ram Tamta took oath in Sanskrit. The Tehri MLA Kishore Upadhyaya started taking the oath in Garhwali language but when the chair reminded him that the oath can be taken either in Hindi, English and Sanskrit, he took the oath in Hindi.
The Manglaur MLA Sarvat Karim Ansari had to repeat the sentences in the oath three times as he pronounced the words incorrectly. The protem speaker Bansidhar Bhagat who tried in vain to correct Ansari later narrated the written sentences of the oath to the MLA and asked him to repeat. Incidentally the BSP MLA Ansari has defeated Congress leader Qazi Nizamuddin in the recent election who apart from being an eloquent speaker was considered as a master of parliamentary proceedings.
