With the Rajya Sabha poised to elect the Deputy Chairman, the Congress renewed its campaign seeking the Deputy Speaker’s position in the Lok Sabha. Congress’s floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, in a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urged him to adhere to the constitutional mandate.
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The Lok Sabha has not had a Deputy Speaker for the last 15 months. Instead, a panel of MPs has been assisting the Speaker. In contrast, within a couple of months after the vacancy arose, the process of electing the Deputy Chairman has begun in the Rajya Sabha. Former Deputy Chairman and JD(U) MP Harivansh filed his nomination papers on Wednesday for a re-election. The Congress is also trying to bring together the opposition parties to field a joint candidate, though the opposition does not have the requisite numbers.
YSRCP declines
Soon after the 2019 general elections, the government had made some effort to fill the position. It had approached the YSR Congress Party, which turned down the offer since it would have been difficult to align its protest against the government for not according special status to Andhra Pradesh while occupying the post.
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Mr. Chowdhury, in his letter to Mr. Birla, said that according to the constitutional mandate the seat of the Deputy Speaker should be filled either by election or consensus after a new Lok Sabha is constituted. He said that by convention the post of the Deputy Speaker is offered to the opposition party. “Already a year has elapsed but still the Lok Sabha is deprived of having a Deputy Speaker, as if it appears an one-horn chair of the Lower House, meanwhile, the Rajya Sabha has been on the verge of electing the Deputy Chairman,” he wrote.
