Pro-tem Speaker row: Congress should ‘protest’ by making K Suresh LoP, says BJP's Kerala unit chief

The Congress has criticised the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for ‘overlooking’ Suresh, the senior-most Lok Sabha member, for the pro-tem Speaker post.

Updated on: Jun 22, 2024, 14:20:39 IST

By HT News Desk, New Delhi

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Amid the ongoing row over the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre ‘overlooking’ Congress party's Kodikunnil Suresh for the post of pro-tem (temporary) Speaker, BJP's Kerala unit chief K Surendran asked the grand old party to ‘protest’ by making Suresh the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha.

Congress MP Kodikunnil Suresh (File Photo)

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“At any rate, this man (Suresh) should be made LoP. This is how the Congress party should express its protest against him not being made a pro-tem Speaker,” Surendran said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

His dig at the grand old party came a day after Suresh, the senior-most member of Lok Sabha, stated that as per convention, he should have been made the pro-tem Speaker. The politician, 62, recently won his eighth Lok Sabha election; he is a four-term winner from the Adoor constituency, and now a four-term winner from the Mavelikara seat.

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The first session of the 18th Lok Sabha will begin on June 24 and the pro-tem Speaker will administer oath to members of the 18th Lok Sabha. The election for the Speaker's position will be held on June 26.

BJP's Bhartruhari Mahtab has been appointed by President Droupadi Murmu as the pro-tem Speaker. Mahtab won six Lok Sabha elections as a BJD leader and the seventh as a leader of the BJP, which he joined just before the recently-held national polls.

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On a high after winning 99 seats, a significant improvement from its tally of 44 and 52 seats in 2014 and 2019, respectively, the Congress now wants its most prominent face and the party's former national president, Rahul Gandhi, to be the LoP. Gandhi, who won both his seats – Kerala's Wayanad and Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli, and decided to retain the latter constituency and vacate the former – is yet to take a call on being the opposition's leader in the House.

(With PTI inputs)

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