By IANS
New Delhi : Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar were among the four people who won the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award here Thursday.
President Pratibha Devisingh Patil presented the awards to them as well as Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the Bhartiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj.
Pawar was awarded for 2003, Sushma Swaraj for 2004, Chidambaram for 2005 and Aiyar for the previous year.
Aiyar also holds the portfolio of Panchayati Raj, Youth Affairs and Department of North Eastern Region while Pawar is also president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
“I am naturally delighted that three of the four awardees today are members of my Cabinet. All of them are not just good parliamentarians, but also have proved to be good administrators,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was present on the occasion, said.
“Aiyar has been an energetic spokesman of the third tier of democracy in this first tier, reminding us that decentralisation of power and development is essential for the success of our democracy,” he said.
Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee were also present on the occasion.
The outstanding Parliamentarian Award was instituted in 1994.