Lok Sabha Speaker / NDA and India are at loggerheads over the post of Speaker, elections will be held for the first time in independent India

Lok Sabha Speaker: The first session of the 18th Lok Sabha has started on Monday and on Wednesday, for the first time in independent India, the election for the Lok Sabha Speaker will be held. There was no consensus between the ruling party and the opposition on the post of Speaker. The ruling party has made Om Birla its candidate for the post of Speaker, while the opposition has made K Suresh its candidate for this post. In this way, on Wednesday, June 26, the tradition of 72 years will be broken because since independence, the Speaker has been elected unanimously, but this time there was no consensus between the ruling party and the opposition. Earlier there were reports that there was a consensus between the ruling party and the opposition for the post of Speaker. The opposition has agreed on the name of Om Birla.

The opposition said that it will not field any candidate for the post of Speaker but it wants the post of Deputy Speaker. When Defense Minister Rajnath Singh called the opposition leaders last night, all the leaders said that they will support the NDA candidate for the post of Speaker but the post of Deputy Speaker should go to the opposition.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju have spoken to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, Mallikarjun Kharge, Akhilesh Yadav and Mamta Banerjee to build a consensus on the names of Lok Sabha Speaker and Deputy Speaker. They also spoke to the prominent leaders of NDA allies. Regarding the Deputy Speaker, he had said that he would give information about it over the phone but no call was made from Rajnath Singh. After this, the opposition made K Suresh the candidate for the post of Speaker.

The Lok Sabha Speaker is elected under Article 93 of the Constitution. MPs elect two MPs from among themselves as Speaker and Deputy Speaker. Generally, the ruling party keeps the post of Lok Sabha Speaker with itself while the post of Deputy Speaker is given to the opposition party. Till now the Lok Sabha Speaker has been elected unanimously and in the history of independent India, no election has been held for this post.

Opposition adamant on the demand for the post of Deputy Speaker in Lok Sabha

The opposition India Alliance, adamant on the demand for the post of Deputy Speaker in Lok Sabha, had warned that if the government did not agree to make any opposition leader the Deputy Speaker, they would contest the election for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker. There was no consensus between the ruling party and the opposition and thus the tradition of unanimously electing the Speaker was broken and now the new Speaker of the Lok Sabha will be elected through voting.

On Tuesday, candidates from both the ruling party and the opposition filed nominations for the Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha. The opposition did not want to field its candidate for the Speaker but it was adamant on the demand for the post of Deputy Speaker. But the ruling party did not give any answer regarding the post of Deputy Speaker. After this, the opposition made K Suresh its candidate for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker. The election for the post of Speaker of the Lok Sabha will be held on Wednesday through voting. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is elected through simple majority. That is, the candidate who gets votes from more than half of the MPs present in the Lok Sabha on that day becomes the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

BJP's government with allies

Under the leadership of Narendra Modi, BJP formed the government with full majority in 2014 and 2019, but this time the government has been successful in forming the government with the help of allies. BJP had full majority in the 16th-17th Lok Sabha. BJP made its leader Sumitra Mahajan the Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha and gave the post of Deputy Speaker to AIADMK. M.Thambi Durai was the Deputy Speaker of this Lok Sabha. After this, in 2019, BJP's Om Birla became the Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha, but the Deputy Speaker was not elected in the Lok Sabha and the post remained vacant for the entire term.

When BJP did not get absolute majority, BJP formed NDA government with the help of TDP and JDU. That is why there was a discussion whether BJP will keep the post of Lok Sabha Speaker with itself or give it to allies. It is believed that the post of Deputy Speaker can be given to TDP. At the same time, India Alliance has decided that if the post of Deputy Speaker is not given to the opposition, then they will field their own candidate for the post of Speaker. On Monday, there was no consensus between the ruling party and the opposition on the post of Speaker. After this, the opposition fielded its own candidate for the post of Speaker because the ruling party did not agree to give it the post of Deputy Speaker.

'There is no rule to give the post of Deputy Speaker to the opposition'

People of Modi government say that there is no rule to give the post of Deputy Speaker to the opposition. This is a tradition, which Congress has started breaking. In the second Lok Sabha, during the Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru government, Hukum Singh of Congress was given this responsibility. During the coalition government, many times the parties leading the government have given the post of Speaker to an ally and kept the post of Deputy Speaker with themselves.

Speakers elected unanimously so far

From Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar, who was elected Speaker of the first Lok Sabha after independence, to Om Birla, who was Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha, all have been elected unanimously. The post of Speaker in the Lok Sabha has also been given to those MPs who were not from the ruling party earlier. The 12th Lok Sabha was presided over by Balayogi of TDP while BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister at that time. Balayogi was also elected as the Speaker of the 13th Lok Sabha. But while holding this post, he died in a helicopter crash, after which Shiv Sena MP Manohar Joshi was the Speaker of the 13th Lok Sabha.

The first UPA government led by Manmohan Singh was given outside support by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), then CPI (M) leader Somnath Chatterjee became the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Meira Kumar, who was the Speaker of the 15th Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014, was the first woman to hold the post of Lok Sabha Speaker. After her, BJP's Sumitra Mahajan became the Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha. There has not been a need to vote for the speaker in the country till now. For the first time in independent India, elections will be held for the Lok Sabha speaker.