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Ask Telangana Guv on Akbaruddin Owaisi: Cong's reply on pro-tem Speaker row
Congress's Uttam Kumar Reddy said he was the seniormost but could not become the pro-tem Speaker as he already took oath as minister.
As the BJP boycotted the oath-taking event of the newly election MLAs in Telangana over the appointment of Akbaruddin Owaisi as the pro-tem Speaker of the Assembly, the Congress said the BJP should ask Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan about the appointment as the order came from the Governor. With this the B team allegation, counter-allegation again surfaced in Telangana as BJP said AIMIM is the B team of the Congress while Congress said the same about BJP. "The BJP MLAs are creating confusion. The decision to make Akbaruddin Owaisi the pro-tem Speaker is of the Governor of Telangana. What we always said has finally been proven. AIMIM is the B team of BJP," Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said sharing the order of the appointment of Akbar as the pro-tem Speaker.
Who is a pro-tem Speaker?
A pro-tem Speaker is a temporary Speaker appointed for a limited time to conduct the proceedings of the House when the Speaker is yet to be elected. The seniormost member of the House is appointed as the pro-tem Speaker.
In Telangana, AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi was appointed as the pro-tem Speaker to administer the oath to the newly elected MLAs. BJP MLAs said other senior MLAs could have been the pro-tem Speaker but Akbaruddin was appointed to the post because of a tacit understanding between the Congress and the AIMIM.
BJP leaders also called the appointment anti-Hindu as Karnataka BJP leader CT Ravi tweeted that the 'anti-Hindu Congress' set aside the normal convention of appointing the senior-most MLA as the pro-tem Speaker to "appease its Vote Bank".
'I should have been as I am the seniormost but...': Uttam Reddy
Congress' Uttam Reddy said he should have been the pro-tem Speaker as the senior most MLA but since he took oath as a minister, the procedure did not allow him to be a pro-tem Speaker. "Akbaruddin is the next senior-most. We did what was the right thing to do. I cannot comment on the future equation with AIMIM. That's for our state leadership to discuss with everybody," Uttam Reddy said.
Brother of AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi, Akbar is a six-time MLA representing Hyderabad's Chandrayangutta assembly since 1999 (in the undivided Andhra Pradesh).
