With Constitution in hand Rahul Gandhi takes oath as MP for the fourth term, amidst chants of “Bharat Jodo”

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took oath as Member of Parliament of the 18th Lok Sabha on Tuesday amidst chants of “jodo jodo Bharat jodo” raised by the Congress MPs. The Raibareli MP walked up to the dias holding the ‘Constitution’ in his hand, he waved it to the house and showed it twice towards the treasury bench before taking the oath.

He ended his oath with “Jai Hind, Jai Samvidan (constitution)”, symbolic of the sentiment on which the Congress and other opposition parties part of the INDIA bloc have fought the Lok Sabha elections claiming the ‘Constitution of India’ was under threat if BJP had returned to power with a brute majority. BJP got restricted to 240 seats while a united INDIA bloc secured 234 seats. BJP along with NDA partners have formed the government with a total strength of 293 in the Lower house.

The four-time MP before getting down from the dias, shook hands with Faggan Singh Kulaste in the chair and also with the Marshal standing next to the chair. Gandhi had fought the election from two seats- Wayanad from Kerala and Raibareli from Uttar Pradesh. He won both the seats and later decided to retain Raibareli, the seat that had previously elected his mother Sonia Gandhi multiple times and released the Wayanad seat from where Congress has now nominated Priyanka Gandhi, his sister for the debut in electoral politics.

Soon after Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also took oath as the MP in the 18th Lok Sabha. Like Gandhi, even he shook hands with the marshal before leaving the dias, which was later termed by the INDIA bloc as reflective of ‘equal dignity and respect for all”.

The Congress party earlier in the day nominated K Suresh as the INDIA bloc candidate for the Speaker’s post after BJP disagreed to give the deputy speaker post to the opposition and sought unanimous support for Om Birla. The election for the post of the Speaker will happen on Wednesday, for the first time since 1952. Trinamool Congress had initially expressed displeasure with Congress nominating Suresh without consulting with them, however inside the house Rahul Gandhi was seen engaged in a discussion with TMC MP and National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee, what sources later claimed was on the issue of the Speaker’s election.