Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday urged MPs retiring from the Rajya Sabha to share their experiences gained in the House with people across the country and inspire coming generations.
Bidding farewell to 72 Rajya Sabha members retiring till July, the prime minister said the experience has its own importance, and the MPs should take it forward in the service of the nation.
"When experienced people go, the responsibility of those remaining increases and they have to take the House forward...," Modi said.
"In the 75th year of India's independence, our great men have given us a lot, and now it is our responsibility to make our contribution to the nation," the prime minister added.
"I urge the retiring members to inspire our coming generations," he said.
Rajya Sabha will bid farewell to 72 members on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Naidu had announced in the House that Zero Hour and Question Hour will not be taken up so as to enable the leaders and members speak on the occasion.
Sources said dinner will also be hosted on Thursday for all the members of Rajya Sabha, where mementos will be presented to the 72 retiring members and another 19 who retired earlier who could not receive the mementos.
At the dinner, about six Rajya Sabha members will showcase their cultural talent, the sources said.
While TMC's Santanu Sen will strum the guitar, his party colleague Dola Sen will present Rabindra Sangeet, the sources said, adding DMK's Tiruchi Siva will sing a Tamil song and BJP's Roopa Ganguly a Hindi song.
Ramachandra Jhangra will sing a patriotic song while NCP's Vandana Chavan will sing a Hindi song during the cultural evening. These individual performances will be followed by a chorus.
Senior officials of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat said that the members of the House will showcase their cultural talents after a gap of 20 years on such an occasion.
Some of the members retiring in April include deputy leader of the Congress Anand Sharma, A K Antony, Subramanian Swamy, MC Mary Kom and Swapan Dasgupta while the terms of Nirmala Sitharaman, Suresh Prabhu, MJ Akbar, Jairam Ramesh, Vivek Tankha, V Vijayasai Reddy will end in June.
Among the members retiring in July are Piyush Goyal, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, P Chidambaram, Ambika Soni, Kapil Sibal, Satish Chandra Misra, Sanjay Raut, Praful Patel and K J Alphons.
While some union ministers and BJP leaders will be renominated by the ruling party, there is no clarity on some renomination of the Congress members, some of whom are of the G-23 which has been critical of the party leadership.
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