The five-day assembly session concluded in Bhopal on Thursday, a day ahead of schedule, with ruling Congress passing Rs 22,000 crore supplementary budget and electing its deputy speaker.
Opposition BJP protested against the process of election of deputy speaker on the grounds that rules and regulations were not followed. The house was adjourned thrice leading to a stalemate between the Congress and the BJP.
While the speaker did not entertain the “point of order” mentioned by former speaker Sita Sharan Sharma, the BJP refused to vote in the election for deputy speaker. The Congress fielded woman MLA Hina Kanware, while the BJP, despite the fact that they do not have enough numbers, also nominated their candidate Jagdish Devada.
Earlier in the day, the speaker, citing rules of procedure, got the Congress nominee voted through voice vote.
Just two days back, Congress MLA Narmada Prasad Parjapati was elected as speaker by vote division when Congress won 120 votes in the house of 230. BJP has just 114 MLAs.
The Madhya Pradesh assembly has a tradition of electing speakers unopposed by way of mutual understanding with the opposition. As a goodwill gesture, the ruling party gives the post of deputy speaker to the opposition. This 40-year-old tradition was broken two days back when the BJP fielded its own candidate against the ruling party for the position of the speaker.
Chief Minister Kamal Nath said, “We have spoken to the opposition before the start of assembly and asked them to uphold the age old tradition, however, they were adamant on contesting for the speakers post. Since the opposition wanted an election, we got the candidate elected by a margin of 120 votes.” He said for that last 10-12 days, the BJP has been trying to mislead our MLAs for cross voting but now they stand exposed.
Today, as opposition members kept shouting in the well of the house, speaker Prajapati conducted the election of deputy speaker by voice vote and later passed all the pending business of the house one by one amid the din.
The house also passed the thanks giving motion for the budget speech by governor Anandi Ben Patel. It also passed the Rs 22,000 crore supplementary budget without any discussion. Since all the business of the house was concluded amid BJP MLAs' shouts the house was adjourned sine die.
Leader of opposition Gopal Bhargav said that the Congress was running the house like an autocrat. We will challenge the election of speaker after consulting legal authorities in the court.
Meanwhile, BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said that they have enough MLAs to topple the government.
