Amidst high voltage drama, the Congress government elected the Madhya Pradesh assembly speaker, with 121 votes in a 230-member assembly. They elected Narmada Prasad Parjapati as assembly speaker amidst empty opposition benches. BJP boycotted the proceedings, terming the election as a “murder of democracy”. Chief Minister Kamal Nath countered the BJP argument, saying that the saffron outfit did not have numbers, so they ran away.

This was the first floor test faced by Kamal Nath. Congress has 114 MLAs, and BJP has 109. In the speaker election, Congress secured 120 votes; the protem speaker Deepak Saxena did not vote. 

In the morning, when the session started, the ruling Congress presented the name of Narmada Prasad Prajapati as their candidate for speaker. The BJP had listed Vijay Shah as their candidate.

However, before the opposition candidate could be discussed, protem speaker Deepak Saxena said the house will first discuss the proposal of the ruling party; after that, the proposal of opposition would be taken.

This led the opposition to protest and they stalled the proceedings of house. Protem speaker has to adjourn the house twice for 10 minutes each. Later when he wanted to give a ruling about the election process, the entire opposition stood up and started shouting slogans.

After a while, as the process for election began, BJP MLAs boycotted the house and walked to governor's residence, registering protest against the act of Congress in not allowing their candidate to contest the speaker's election.

Congress leader Digvijay Singh, who was especially in Bhopal to oversee the first floor of test of Kamal Nath government, said that BJP was creating unnecessary drama as they don't have numbers.

He later disclosed to the media that the BJP had tried hard to buy Congress MLA Kedar Kushwaha. Digvijay Singh accused former BJP minister Narottam Mishra and Vishwas Sarang of kidnapping the Congress MLA and luring him with an offer of Rs 100 crore to switch sides.

Earlier in the day, the BJP elected former minister Gopal Bhargav as leader of opposition.

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