WASHINGTON, Jan 18: Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris will officially resign from her seat in the US Senate on Monday, after being an active and productive part of the chamber for the past four years.

Alongwith Joe Biden as the new President, Harris will be sworn in as the Vice-President on Wednesday, making history to become the first female, the first Black and the first South Asian Vice-President, coming after many more 'firsts' in a remarkable career. She had spearheaded historic legislations for women's rights as also racial equality. She was also the first Black woman in California to serve as a Senator.

Harris represented California and therefore Governor Gavin Newsom has nominated a new Senator for the rest of her term in the Senate, as stipulated in the Constitution. California's Secretary of State Alex Padilla will be the replacement.

With the Democrats winning the two Georgian runoffs, their strength vis-a-vis the Republicans will be 50:50, with the Vice-President, who is the President of the Senate, having a tie-breaking vote, promising safe passage of Biden's economic programmes. So Harris can see any legislation, judicial appointments and Cabinet nominations pass through.

Harris will be sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, according to a report. Her aides have been quoted in the press saying the Vice-President-elect will take her oath of office using two Bibles. One of them belongs to her childhood neighbour who is one of the two women other than her mother she is credited with having said repeatedly to have influenced the course of her life - Regina Shelton. The other Bible belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court.

NPR quoted her sometime back that she will be thinking of her late mother Shyamala Gopalan at the momentous event : "I will be thinking about my mother, who is looking down from heaven."

FLASHBACK: "Outside of my mother, there are two women who were central to my childhood and making me into the person I am today: my neighbor Mrs. Shelton and my first grade teacher Mrs. Wilson.

"Mrs. Shelton was a warm and eloquent woman, originally from Louisiana. She and her husband, Arthur, owned and ran a nursery school. When our mother worked late, it was Mrs. Shelton’s home where my sister, Maya, and I would go after school. Her house was like an extension of our own household, and Mrs. Shelton became a second mother to us."