Nana Patole elected Speaker; BJP withdraws its candidate

Nana Patole, a four-time legislator and Congress leader, was on Sunday elected unopposed to the post of the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, after the Bharatiya

Nana Patole, a four-time legislator and Congress leader, was on Sunday elected unopposed to the post of the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly, after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Kisan Kathore withdrew his candidature owing to a consensus between the ruling alliance and Opposition.

HT Image

The ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Saturday fielded Patole, after the three-party alliance agreed to offer the deputy chief minister’s post to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Insiders said Pro-tem Speaker Dilip Walse-Patil met Devendra Fadnavis, legislative leader of the BJP, over tea and requested him to withdraw their candidate. “We decided to withdraw Kathore’s nomination following a request from the ruling side,” state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil said. “At an all-party meeting, the parties requested us and it has been a tradition that the Speaker is appointed unopposed… so we accepted the request and withdrew our candidate’s name,” said Fadnavis, while speaking at the congratulatory motion moved in the state Assembly, after Patole took charge as the new Speaker.

“We knew the BJP did not have the numbers. Further, there was a possibility that our votes would have crossed 170 had there been voting for the Speaker’s post. We proposed to them to withdraw the candidate, which they accepted,” said a senior NCP leader.

There was also uncertainty over the appointment of Fadnavis as the leader of the Opposition. The Opposition leader’s name was not mentioned in the day’s agenda of the Assembly. Ultimately, both sides worked out a consensus and Patole was elected unopposed, while Fadnavis was appointed the leader of the Opposition.

Patole, who succeeded the BJP’s Haribhau Bagade, represents the Vidarbha region’s Sakoli Assembly segment. He started his political career as a student leader in 1987 at the Nagpur University. He joined the Congress later and became Bhandara Zilla Parishad member in 1991. Patole was first elected to the Maharashtra Assembly in 1999. He was re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Patole joined the BJP and won the 2014 Lok Sabha election before returning to the Congress, citing differences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Fadnavis in December 2017. He won his fourth term from Sakoli by defeating Parinay Fuke, a former minister and close aide of Fadnavis. He was elected as the Speaker a day after chief minister Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA coalition government sailed through the floor test in the Assembly.

The MVA got 169 votes, above the halfway mark of 145, in the 288-member Assembly.

Thackeray lauded Patole’s work as a lawmaker and a farmers’ leader after escorting him to the Speaker’s chair along with other senior members of the House following his election.. “I am happy that the son of a farmer has occupied this post (of the Speaker),” the chief minister said. Fadnavis echoed Thackeray and also appreciated Patole’s work. He said, “Although we have fielded our candidate, the election of Speaker through a tough fight would have sent a wrong message, so we decided to withdraw the nomination.”

NCP minister Jayant Patil appreciated the spirit of the BJP. Patil said, “By withdrawing the nomination, the BJP has compensated the damage it has caused (with its actions) yesterday.”

The BJP on Saturday staged a walkout from the House ahead of the floor test as Thackeray-led MVA government took exception to a Pro-tem Speaker presiding over the trust vote before the election of a Speaker. The BJP was unhappy over the ruling alliance’s move to replace Kalidas Kolambkar with NCP’s Dilip-Walse Patil as Pro-tem Speaker.