LS Speaker contest: A symbolic fight for combative Opposition against defiant NDA

Birla, who during his tenure as Speaker of the 17th Lok Sabha gained infamy for suspending as many as 100 Opposition MPs, is widely expected to win the election as the NDA has a clear majority of 293 MPs. Yet, the 237-member INDIA bloc’s decision of forcing a contest portends vital takeaways with regard to both, its own political posturing and its terms of engagement with the government inside Parliament.

What prompted the election?

The immediate trigger for the election, of course, is the Centre’s rejection of the INDIA bloc’s demand for an outright commitment from the government that it would follow parliamentary conventions and cede the post of Lok Sabha’s deputy Speaker to the Opposition.

Since 1967, it has been a nearly unbroken tradition that while a member of the ruling party or coalition is elected as the Lok Sabha Speaker, the deputy Speaker is chosen from the ranks of the Opposition.

On Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament that Union defence minister Rajnath Singh had called Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge seeking the Opposition’s support for the NDA’s candidate for the post of Speaker. Rahul said Kharge conveyed to Singh that the Congress and other constituents of the INDIA bloc would support the NDA nominee if the BJP gives an assurance that the deputy Speaker would be chosen from the Opposition’s ranks.

Rahul claimed Singh was supposed to revert to Kharge with the BJP’s response but had not done so. Shortly after, K Suresh, the Congress’s eight-term MP from Kerala, filed his nomination for the Speaker’s post while the NDA bloc named Birla as its candidate.

Interestingly, sources said that while Singh was reaching out for Opposition leaders seeking their support for the NDA’s Speaker candidate, he refrained from divulging who the BJP had in mind for the job.

A Congress leader close to Kharge told The Federal that “the fact that we were willing to consider supporting the NDA candidate without even knowing who it would be shows that we wanted to conform to the tradition of a unanimously elected Speaker but then the BJP was clearly in no mood of following the same traditions and giving the Opposition the deputy Speaker’s post.”

BJP blames Opposition

Sundry members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, including parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, expectedly blamed the Congress and its allies for forcing an electoral contest.

“The INDIA parties, especially the Congress, was adamant that we must first give a commitment on deputy Speaker...we told them that the two elections are separate and we can discuss the deputy Speaker later but they made their support for the Speaker conditional... this is not how democracy should function; you cannot put conditions on a post as important as that of the Speaker... the Speaker does not represent any political party; he is the custodian of the House,” Rijiju said.

Matter of parliamentary conventions

INDIA bloc leaders insist that the issue at stake is not who gets the post of the Speaker or the deputy Speaker but that of following parliamentary conventions.

“The BJP stands exposed once again. We have been saying that the Prime Minister and his party do not believe in following parliamentary norms and the Constitution and this entire episode proves that once again. Yesterday, they broke the parliamentary convention of appointing the seniormost MP as Speaker Pro-Tem when they chose (seven-term MP) Bhartruhari Mahtab over K Suresh and today they have refused to give the deputy Speaker’s post to the Opposition,” Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi told The Federal.

Senior Samajwadi Party leader and new MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar, Lalji Verma said the INDIA bloc had “no reason to believe that the BJP would give us the deputy Speaker’s post if we had supported their Speaker candidate”.

Verma added, “This is the same government that kept the deputy Speaker’s post vacant for the past five years and it has a long track record of making false promises... they said we should first support their candidate and that they would discuss the deputy Speaker with the Opposition later; how do we believe them... they would have taken our support now and later appointed their own candidate as deputy Speaker or would have kept the post vacant like last time”.

Alert Opposition

It is evident that the row over the Speaker’s election has once again exposed the stark trust deficit between the BJP and its political rivals but sources in the INDIA bloc say there is more to the raging acrimony than just one election.

“We know we don’t have the numbers to defeat the NDA in the Speaker election; the idea is not to win the election but to show the government as well as the people that the Opposition is alert and combative. The Speaker Pro-Tem or the deputy Speaker don’t have the powers that a Speaker has but it is important for the Opposition to keep the government on its toes and to expose any wrongdoing,” a Congress MP Tariq Anwar said.

Congress sources said by fielding Suresh, a Dalit, against Birla, the INDIA bloc has also subtly indicated that it would continue to harangue the BJP on the charge of being anti-Dalit. The Congress had also accused the BJP of an anti-Dalit bias when it picked Mahtab as the Speaker Pro-Tem.

“Look at the Lok Sabha proceedings since yesterday. There are two clear things that you will notice. Firstly, everyone in the INDIA bloc is carrying a copy of the Constitution; Rahul and several other MPs even held it out while taking oath. Secondly, Audhesh Prasad (veteran Dalit leader of Samajwadi Party who won the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat) is sitting in the front row with Rahul and Akhilesh. Now we have Suresh as our candidate for the Speaker election. Our message is clear – the INDIA bloc stands for preserving the Constitution against assaults by the BJP and it stands with oppressed communities,” said another Congress MP.

A newly-elected NCP (Sharad Pawar) MP told The Federal, requesting anonymity, that though the election was largely a “symbolic fight”, it has its own significance because it would convey to the people that “the INDIA bloc’s fight to save the Constitution and stand guard against Modi’s autocratic rule was not merely an election slogan; we intend to deliver on that promise everyday even though we may have lost the election”.

Legislative strength

The Speaker’s election will also give the two sides a chance to showcase their legislative strength. The recent Lok Sabha polls ended with a result that brought the INDIA bloc within striking distance of power while pulling the BJP, for the first time in a decade, below the simple majority mark. The final seat tally has placed the INDIA bloc at 234 seats against the NDA coalition’s 293 seats, ensuring that Modi survives as PM but with unstable crutches provides by maverick allies like TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and JD (U) president Nitish Kumar.

In the days immediately following the Lok Sabha results, three independents – Pappu Yadav, Vishal Patil and Mohd Haneefa – have formally extended support to the Congress, taking the party’s official tally of 99 MPs to 102 and the INDIA bloc’s to 237 MPs. The task for the INDIA bloc now is to ensure that its flock either remains intact or grows further instead of being chipped away by the BJP.

Rumblings in INDIA bloc

Unfortunately for the INDIA bloc though, the haste shown by the Congress in pushing Suresh to face off against Birla has also ended up ruffling feathers within the INDIA bloc. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, a mercurial ally to begin with, has already hit discordant notes over not being consulted by the Congress in the matter. Sudip Bandopadhyay, the Trinamool floor leader in the Lok Sabha, has said a call on whether the Trinamool would support Suresh’s candidature will now be taken by Banerjee and cautioned the Congress against taking “such unilateral decisions”.

Congress sources said Kharge had “already stepped in” to control any damage from the Trinamool and was expected to speak to Banerjee on the matter. The Congress president will also be meeting floor leaders of all INDIA allies on Tuesday night to discuss the Speaker’s election. There is some speculation that the meeting could also see a renewed push for the appointment of Rahul Gandhi as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha; yet another gambit that the INDIA bloc believes would test the NDA’s nerves given Rahul unfiltered broadsides against Modi and the BJP.