Nana Patole is MVA’s pick for Maharashtra Speaker

A day after a tussle between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) over the power-sharing formula came to the fore, the old allies seem to have resolved

A day after a tussle between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) over the power-sharing formula came to the fore, the old allies seem to have resolved their dispute as they stuck to the earlier arrangement — the Congress getting the Speaker’s post and the NCP getting the deputy chief ministership. The Congress on Saturday chose Nana Patole, a senior legislator from Sakoli, Nagpur, for the Speaker’s post, while senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar could be the deputy chief minister in the three-party coalition government.

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Election for the Speaker’s position will be held on December 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has named MLA Kisan Kathore for the Speaker’s post. Going by the numbers with the ruling side — the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won the trust vote in the Assembly with the support of 169 MLAs on Saturday — Patole is likely to be elected as the next Speaker.

After a hectic discussion between the top leaders of the three MVA parties, it was decided that the chief minister’s (CM) position will be with the Sena, deputy chief minister’s post with the NCP and the Assembly Speaker’s position with the Congress. However, in the past few days, the Congress had been demanding changes in the formula, and insisted on swapping the Speaker’s post with that of the deputy CM’s with the NCP.

The issue was resolved after Congress’s state unit president, Balasaheb Thorat, declared that the party’s candidate for the Speaker’s election was Patole. “Nana Patole will contest the elections for the Speaker’s position as the MVA candidate,” Thorat said, after meeting NCP chief Sharad Pawar at his residence on Saturday. The Congress had prepared a list of three candidates for the position — Patole, Varsha Gaikwad and KC Padvi — said a Congress functionary. “We refused to make any changes to the formula determined by the top leaders of all three parties. We have clearly said that this is not the way to run a coalition government,” said a senior NCP leader, who did not wish to be named.

On Saturday, the Thackeray-led MVA government proved its majority with 169 votes in the state Assembly. The Opposition, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), walked out of the House, alleging the MVA had violated Constitutional norms.

The deadline for withdrawing the nomination for the Speaker’s election is 10am, on Sunday, and there are speculations that the BJP may withdraw its candidature. In such a case, Patole will be elected as the Speaker unopposed. Patole is a four-term MLA from Sakoli in Nagpur. He had joined the BJP ahead of the 2009 Assembly polls. He emerged as a giant killer by defeating NCP stalwart Praful Patel from the Bhandara-Gondia constituency in 2014. Patole resigned as a BJP MP after criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies, and returned to the Congress in 2017.

According to the state legislature rules, election for the Speaker’s post shall be conducted through secret ballot voting. However, the ruling side can invoke a special rule to conduct the elections through open ballot voting,if they don’t want to take any chances. NCP has called a meeting of all its MLAs on Sunday morning to explain the voting process, said an NCP leader.