The Hindu : Govt. for unanimous election of Speaker

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 07, 2002

National

National

Govt. for unanimous election of Speaker

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 6. The Government would like the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to be elected unanimously. To make that happen, it would first hold consultations within the National Democratic Alliance and then with the main Opposition parties.

There seems to be little doubt that the Congress would agree to this arrangement. After all, the Congress nominee, P.M. Sayeed, was elected unopposed to the post of Deputy Speaker by both the 12th and the 13th Lok Sabhas. Of course, the main Opposition party can be expected to insist on being consulted and taken into confidence on the choice of the ruling coalition. For the record, the Congress' position is that it can make up its mind only after the ruling party takes the initiative and consults it.

G.M.C. Balayogi, first elected Speaker by the 12th Lok Sabha amid a controversy, was again elected to the post unanimously by the 13th Lok Sabha after the NDA and the Congress agreed that Mr. Sayeed would also continue to hold the position of Deputy Speaker.

In the 10th and the 11th Lok Sabha, the post of Speaker went to the Congress (it was the ruling party in the 10th Lok Sabha and supporting the United Front Government in the 11th) — P.A. Sangma was the unanimous choice — while the Deputy Speaker's post was bagged by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

An unstated understanding and accepted practice now is that the ruling party (or coalition) should have its nominee for the Speaker's post and the post of Deputy Speaker should go to the main Opposition party although there is no rule of procedure which says so. By and large, most political parties feel that it would be unhealthy to make the office of the presiding officer of the Lok Sabha controversial by subjecting it to a contested election. At the same time, the view is that the nominee for the position should have the "stature'' and the "ability to rise above partisan politics.''

However, in the 12th Lok Sabha, there was a contest in March 1998, and the BJP was to blame for the mess. The then Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Madan Lal Khurana, let it be known that the ruling coalition would support Mr. Sangma of the Congress. At the eleventh hour, the BJP struck a deal with the Telugu Desam Party, offered the position to it in return for outside support to its Government. A few months later, it pacified the Opposition to some extent by allowing Mr. Sayeed to be elected unopposed as the Deputy Speaker.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National