17th Lok Sabha commencement shows India's 'linguistic diversity'

The oath-taking ceremony of members of parliament once again brought out the 'linguistic diversity' of the country. Various Ministers belonging to the different states used their mother, whereas few took their oath in Sanskrit and a few others in English.

Delhi:The 17th Lok Sabha commenced proceedings on Monday, and displayed the 'linguistic diversity' of India in the oath-taking ceremony.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh took oath in Hindi, but most of the members of parliament (MPs) preferred to do so in various regional languages.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, an ENT surgeon, surprised everyone in the house when he took his oath in Sanskrit. Ministers of State Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Pratap Chandra Sarangi also took the oath in Sanskrit.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and Union Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Sadananda Gowda, both took their oaths in Kannada as they both belong to Karnataka.

To everyone's surprise, Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh from Kerala chose to take oath in Hindi instead of English or his mother tongue Malayalam. He took oath immediately after the Prime Minister.

Kodikunnil Suresh along with two other senior members Brajbhushan Saran Singh and Bhartruhari Mahtab has been appointed by the President to be in the panel of chairmen to conduct proceedings till the new Speaker is elected. Brajbhushan Saran Singh and Bhartruhari Mahtab took oath after Suresh.

Minister of State (MoS) in Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh, hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, took oath in his mother tongue Dogri.

Harsimrat Kaur, the Food Processing Minister, preferred to take oath in Punjabi who once took it in English as Union Minister. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Hoshiarpur Som Prakash also used Punjabi to take his oath.

Union Cabinet Minister Rameshwar Teli and Kripanath Mallah, and Naba Kumar Saranai took oaths in the Assamese.

Raiganj MP Debasree Chaudhuri, who was elected from Raiganj parliamentary constituency in West Bengal and Silchar MP Rajdeep Roy took their oaths in Bengali.

Shiv Sena MP and Cabinet Minister Arvind Sawan and Union Minister Shripad Yeso Naik used Marathi and Konkani respectively to take their oath.

Lok Sabha MPs elected from Andhra Pradesh Talari Rangaiah, Vanga Geethaviswanath, YS Avinash Reddy, Beesetti Venkata Satyavathi, Adala Prabhakara Reddy, Bellana Chandra Sekhar, Goddeti Madhavi, M V V Satyanarayana, Vanga Geethaviswanath, Margani Bharat, N Reddeppa, Balashowry Vallabbhaneni, Nandigam Suresh and Pocha Brahmananda Reddy all took oath in Telugu.

But, some of their counterparts from Andhra Pradesh took their oath in English.

Protem Speaker Virendra Kumar was sworn in earlier today by the President in Rashtrapati Bhawan on the first day of the maiden session of the 17th Lok Sabha.

The election for Speaker of the Lok Sabha will take place on June 19, and President Ram Nath Kovind will address the joint session of Parliament on June 20.

The Union Budget will be presented by the new government on July 5.