Four-time BJP MLA Girish Gautam, who represents Deotalab constituency of Rewa district, is all set to be the next Speaker of Madhya Pradesh Assembly, with the Congress indicating it will not contest the post and facilitate unanimous election of the Speaker.
Gautam filed his nomination at the Assembly secretariat on Sunday in presence of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, home and legislative affairs minister Narottam Mishra and other senior ministers of Chouhan cabinet.
The four-time MLA represents the Vindhya region in northeast of the state, which was said to be ignored by the Bharatiya Janata Party while constituting the cabinet and making appointments to other important posts. There have been demands raised inside the party about proper representation to Vindhya and Mahakoshal regions.
It will be after 17 years that a leader from Vindhya will occupy the post of Speaker after Congress stalwart Shriniwas Tiwari who held the post for two terms from 1993 to 2003. Interestingly it was Gautam who had defeated Tiwari in the 2003 Assembly polls, the first win as MLA for the BJP leader.
Gautam’s unanimous election on February 22, the first day of budget session of the state Assembly looks imperative with the ex-chief minister and leader of opposition Kamal Nath saying that the opposition party will give its full cooperation for the unanimous election of the Speaker keeping in mind the dignity of the constitutional post.
Nath, however, did not fail to take a dig at the BJP while making this announcement through social media. “BJP never believed in parliamentary traditions. BJP broke the age old tradition of giving Speaker post to the ruling party and that of deputy speaker to the opposition. But we have always believed in parliamentary traditions,” he tweeted before announcing support for the Speaker election process.
Nath’s dig alludes to the fact that in 2018, when the Congress government was formed, the BJP had decided to field a candidate (Vijay Shah) for the post of Speaker, though this attempt was not allowed by the pro-tem speaker and N.P. Prajapati of Congress was elected speaker with the votes of Congress and non-BJP MLAs. This led the Congress to field a candidate for the deputy speaker post too and Hina Kanwre of the party was elected for this post.
Recently, BJP state president Vishnu Dutt Sharma had indicated that the BJP will follow suit and not allow the Congress to have a deputy speaker in the house. However following the Congress decision not to contest Speaker post, it remains to be seen whether an election is held for the post of deputy speaker or not.
Meanwhile, Kamal Nath skipped the customary all-party meet held on Sunday ahead of the commencement of the Assembly session. Nath rather attended the division level workers’ meet of Congress in Indore on the day. The legislative party meet of the Congress to discuss the strategy for the budget session is scheduled for February 22 evening. Legislative affairs minister Mishra criticized the decision of the LoP not to attend the all-party meet, though other senior Congress leaders attended the meeting.
