The hard-fought and polarised election continues to inform the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha with the Lok Sabha Speaker’s post being contested by two candidates, the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) Om Birla, who was the Speaker in the 17th Lok Sabha, and eight-term MP from the Congress, K. Suresh.
This is, however, not the first instance that the Speaker’s post has seen a poll, with at least three previous occasions witnessing voting on the floor of the House, while in two other instances, the Opposition parties put up a candidate but the Speaker’s election was held on the basis of a voice vote.
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According to Ravindra Garimella, former Joint Secretary (Legislation), the first time an election for the Speaker’s post took place was in the first Lok Sabha of 1952, when G.V. Mavalankar polled 394 votes to defeat Shantaram More, who managed to garner 55 votes.
Then again, in 1967, during the fourth Lok Sabha, Congress’ Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy faced off against Tenneti Viswanathan, whose candidature was supported by former Prime Minister, the late Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was then an MP. Reddy was elected as the Speaker, having polled 278 votes against Viswanathan’s 207.
And finally, in the fifth Lok Sabha, the duration of the fifth session was extended by an year following the imposition of Emergency by the late then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. The then Speaker G.S. Dhillon had resigned on December 1, 1975. “In 1976, the election of Baliram Bhagat was necessitated by the fact that the previous Speaker had been made a Cabinet Minister in the then Congress government,” Mr. Garimella said.
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On January 5, 1976, during the Emergency, Bhagat was elected Speaker against a competing claim by Jana Sangh leader Jagannath Rao Joshi. Gandhi moved the motion to elect Bhagat as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, while Prasannabhai Mehta of the Congress (O) moved the motion to elect Joshi to the post. Bhagat polled 344 votes against Joshi’s 58.
There were two other instances when competing candidates were put up, in the tenth and twelfth Lok Sabha, respectively, but since the government’s candidates were elected via a voice vote, other motions were considered lapsed.
In the tenth and twelfth Lok Sabha, in 1998, the then Congress leader Sharad Pawar had moved a motion to elect P.A. Sangma as the Speaker, which was negatived. After the rejection of Mr. Pawar’s motion, the late then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee moved a motion to choose Telugu Desam Party (TDP) member G.M.C. Balayogi as the Lok Sabha Speaker. The motion moved by Vajpayee was adopted.
These instances shine light on the fact that, despite the vicissitudes of coalition politics, it has been a while since voting has taken place in a contest to elect the Lok Sabha Speaker.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reduced from full majority in 2019 to 240 MPs in this year’s General Election, and at the head of a coalition government, is keen to demonstrate its dominance of the House and the stability of its coalition. The effort, say sources in the party, is to register a comprehensive number backing their candidate, over and above the NDA’s numbers, for which the four Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) MPs have also pledged their support to the NDA.
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju stressed the point that the Lok Sabha Speaker was above party lines and it was a desirable aim that his or her election to the post should be unanimous and without rancour.
For the Opposition, contesting would be an opportunity to demonstrate the consolidation of the anti-NDA bloc, although that endeavour did run into some rough weather with the Trinamool Congress (TMC), a constituent of the INDIA bloc, not having been kept in the loop before Mr. Suresh’s nomination was filed. That storm in a tea cup has passed, and the TMC has indicated that it will be with the INDIA bloc in the Speaker’s election.
The nature of the mandate of the 2024 Lok Sabha election had promised a more fraught Parliament, with a coalition government, but the tug of war appears to have already begun with no honeymoon period for the new government.
