Odishatv Bureau
New Delhi: Six Rajya Sabha members on Thursday bid farewell to the House with an appeal to the government to urgently address the burning issues of corruption, inflation and unemployment.

The members, whose term was completed today included Brinda Karat and Md Amin (both CPI-M), Surendra Motilal Patel and Praveen Naik (both BJP), Abani Roy (RSP) and Swapan Sadhan Bose (Trinamool Congress).

Ahmed Patel (Congress) and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) have been re-elected.

Extending good wishes to the retiring members, Chairman Hamid Ansari said they made valuable contribution to the House.

"In the current situation, attempts are underway how to finish the democratic system in our country," Roy said urging the Prime Minister to take steps to check such trends as well as corruption.

"Set right our democratic system and keep corruption at bay so that no one can make comments against MPs or Parliament," he said.

Roy appealed to the Prime Minister, who was present in the House to take the country forward by discharging his responsibilities by taking everybody along.

"People are suffering from inflation and unemployment," he said.

Karat chose the occasion to urge the government to soon introduce in the Lok Sabha the Women Reservation Bill providing 33 per cent reservation to women in Parliament and state assemblies so that a law could be enacted.

Thanking the male members of Rajya Sabha for the passage of the bill in the Upper House, Karat said, "There should not be any further delay in bringing that bill to Lok Sabha."

Expressing concern over social and economic inequalities, she said unless these disparities were removed, political democracy would be in peril.

Emphasizing the role of education in country`s development, Bose said schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan are too bureaucratic.

He said while literacy has gone up, children`s reading and mathematical abilities have declined and demanded Special Education Zones on the lines of Special Economic Zones in the country.

Md Amin bid emotional farewell to the House by reciting Urdu couplets.

Raising issues of corruption and price rise, the CPI-M member said there was a need to adopt socialism to resolve these problems.

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