A day after the Congress proposed fielding a joint opposition candidate for the post of the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson, opposition parties have started demanding that the Lok Sabha fill the post of deputy speaker, a position lying vacant since the Narendra Modi government came to power for its second term in May 2019.
Congress Lok Sabha floor leader Adhir Chowdhury wrote a letter to speaker Om Birla and Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien penned a blog criticising the Modi government for not appointing a deputy speaker.
“According to constitutional mandate the seat of the Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha should be filled either by election or consensus as early as may after a new Lok Sabha is constituted,” Chowdhury wrote in the letter, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT.
Chowdhury noted that the Rajya Sabha is on the verge of electing a deputy chairman, emphasising that it was an “opportune moment” to elect the deputy speaker of the lower house.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has not yet indicated if it wants to appoint a deputy speaker during the monsoon session that begins on September 14 with a packed schedule of legislative business and debates.
O’Brien attacked the government for the delay in the appointment. “What does one say when a government with a comfortable majority has managed to do something which hasn’t been done since 1952 – take 450 days to elect a Deputy Speaker? That is six months more than what has ever been taken,” he wrote in his blog.
{{/usCountry}}O’Brien attacked the government for the delay in the appointment. “What does one say when a government with a comfortable majority has managed to do something which hasn’t been done since 1952 – take 450 days to elect a Deputy Speaker? That is six months more than what has ever been taken,” he wrote in his blog.
{{/usCountry}}O’Brien pointed out that the post of deputy speaker “usually is given to the principal opposition party in the Lok Sabha.”
“This trend started in the 6th Lok Sabha of 1977 when the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai of the Janata Party offered the post to the Opposition, making Godey Murahari of the Congress the Deputy Speaker. The post has also been given out to allies in the 7th Lok Sabha of 1980 and the 8th Lok Sabha of 1984,” O’Brien pointed out.
The Trinamool leader also lashed out at “the BJP’s aversion to letting the Opposition create any space for itself in parliament.”
“It gets worse with every passing session. Question Hour has been cancelled with sloppy excuses being made. Zero Hour in the forthcoming monsoon session has now been reduced from 60 to 30 minutes (might as well rename it Zero Half Hour!). Many other parliamentary practices and precedents have been set aside by an arrogant government which is slowly weakening every great institution,” O’Brien wrote.