‘Be it Nehru or Indira, Congress governments never gave the post of Speaker or Deputy Speaker to the opposition’

New Delhi: Om Birla has once again been elected the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. However, before his/her election as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, there was a fierce battle over this. A war of words was seen between the BJP and the Congress. The Bharatiya Janata Party rejected the claim of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi that there has been a tradition of appointing a Deputy Speaker from the opposition party for the post of Lok Sabha Speaker. The BJP presented several examples where both the posts of Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies have been with the ruling party. BJP spokesperson Shahzad Poonawala said in a post on X, ‘It is very shameful that the Congress is giving a political color to the election of the Speaker, which should be fair.’

Shahzad Poonawala said, ‘Rahul Gandhi is saying that it is a tradition that the Deputy Speaker should be from the opposition and this was the first condition for supporting the Speaker. Such a condition is shameful.’ he/she raised the question whether his/her own family followed the tradition he/she is talking about? Poonawala gave an example and said that when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister, M. Ananthasayanam Iyengar (1952-1956), Hukum Singh (1956-1962) and S. V. Krishnamurthy Rao (1962-67) were Deputy Speakers. All of them were from Congress while the Speaker was also from the same party. During Indira Gandhi’s tenure too, Congress’ R. K. Khadilkar was the Deputy Speaker from 1967-1969.

The BJP leader also shared details of states held by the Congress and its allies, where both the posts were held by the same party. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress’ Biman Banerjee is the speaker and his/her party colleague Ashish Banerjee is his/her deputy. In Tamil Nadu, DMK’s M. Appavu is the speaker and K. Pichandi is the deputy speaker. In Karnataka, Congress’ U.T. Khader Fareed is the speaker and R.M. Lamani is the deputy speaker.

Shahzad Poonawala also mentioned Kerala. he/she said that in Kerala, LDF’s A.N. Shamseer (CPI-M) is the speaker and Chittayam Gopakumar is the deputy speaker. The post of deputy speaker is vacant in Telangana and Jharkhand. There is a Congress government in Telangana, while in Jharkhand, there is a JMM government, its ally. Shahzad Poonawala said that just like the Congress was lying on the issue of pro tem speaker, it is lying here as well.