Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge calls a meeting of newly elected party MPs before special session of Parliament
Opposition INDIA bloc yet to formulate strategy regarding Speaker’s election
Opposition MPs are likely to enter the Lok Sabha on June 24 with a copy of the pocket-sized Constitution to take oath after assembling at the Mahatma Gandhi statue inside the Parliament complex.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Rajya Sabha, has also convened a meeting of all the newly elected party members, including Rahul Gandhi, at the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) office, a senior leader said on June 23.
The INDIA bloc and the Congress have to decide its strategy regarding the Speaker’s election, which is scheduled for June 26. On June 24, pro tem Speaker Bhartruhari Mahtab will announce the schedule by which the nomination process has to be completed.
While the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has a comfortable majority to elect a Speaker of its choice, the office of the Speaker has not seen a contest in the recent past. The convention has been to arrive at a choice by consensus as the Lok Speaker is meant to be above partisan politics.
However, a section of Opposition leaders argues that the Narendra Modi government has not followed convention, either in giving the Deputy Speaker’s post to the Opposition or even making the senior most MP, Kodikunnil Suresh of the Congress, as the pro tem Speaker.
“Kodikunnil Suresh of the INC, who is in his eighth term, should have been Speaker Protem. But Bhartruhari Mahtab of the BJP has been appointed on the flimsy grounds that he has greater claim because this is his 7th consecutive term,” Congress’s Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
“If this argument is adopted, then why has Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi, a BJP MP who is also in his 7th consecutive term, not been considered? Is it because he is a Dalit like Suresh?” he asked.
- Telegram
SEE ALL
PRINT
Indian National Congress
/
Parliament proceedings
/
parliament