Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu gets teary-eyed in Rajya Sabha, here’s why

Venkaiah Naidu's five-year term as Rajya Sabha Chairman will come to an end on August 10. Naidu got emotional during the Rajya Sabha session today as political leaders delivered farewell speeches.

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday (August 8, 2022) got emotional during the Rajya Sabha session as the political leaders delivered farewell speeches two days ahead of his retirement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, and many other leaders delivered the farewell speeches in the honor of the outgoing Vice President who will demit the office on Wednesday, and his successor Jagdeep Dhankhar will take the oath of office on August 11.

Naidu got teary-eyed after Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Derek O Brien reminisced some old memories with him.

In his farewell speech, Derek O’Brien narrated a story, he said, “There was a family in a village which had 8 bulls. One day, one of them got flared up and attacked the woman with its horn in her stomach. She had a one-year-old baby in her arms. Leaving the baby there, the woman was taken to a hospital but she died. That one-year-old baby was Venkaiah Naidu. The child lost his mother at the age of one. This is your story, sir, of your early loss.” 

“And from that early loss, you have done whatever you have done which we can find in not only in Wikipedia entries but in a glorious career you had,” Derek added.

Derek reminded the retiring VP of the long way he has scaled to reach where he is through his speech. 

Meanwhile, VP Naidu also got emotional even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was delivering his farewell speech for the outgoing VP. Modi said as far as he knows Naidu, his farewell is not possible as people will keep calling him for something or the other.

The prime minister said that in a bid to take Naidu's legacy of advocating use of mother tongue forward, it would be a good idea to have a collection of good words spoken in mother tongue by members in both the Houses.

Modi noted that when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was being formed, Naidu said that it's the prerogative of the prime minister to pick ministers and their departments, but he would like rural development.

"Atal ji chose him for that and he fulfilled his responsibilities very well. He also then headed urban development. So, he had his expertise in both rural and urban development. He was the first chairperson who was a member of the Rajya Sabha earlier," Modi said.