Chhattisgarh polls: Cong may give protem speaker to State for fourth time

Raipur, December 03

Congress is on verge of making a rare record in the history of Chhattisgarh assembly as for the fourth consecutive time, one of its senior MLAs is likely to be announced as protem speaker after declaration of poll results. As compared to their Congress counterparts, the BJP MLAs, who have re-contested in the recent polls, have less legislative experience.

According to rules, there is a provision of nominating a protem speaker for smooth conduction of House for new assembly before election of permanent speaker. The job of protem speaker is entrusted to senior most member of the House for winning maximum number of polls.

After announcement of poll results, the Vidhan Sabha secretariat prepares a list of senior MLAs from ruling and opposition parties and then sends it to the leader of the House, i.e. chief minister. From the list, the CM proposes one name to Governor for nomination.

The portem speaker administers oath to the newly elected legislators and conducts House proceedings till election of full-time speaker.

Congress was in power when Chhattisgarh was carved from Madhya Pradesh in year 2000. On the basis of seniority, the protem speaker of Chhattisagrh’s first assembly became Congress MLA Mahendra Bahadur Singh. The House then elected late Rajendra Prasad Shukla from Congress as full-time speaker.

In 2003, the BJP won assembly polls and Shukla became second protem speaker. However, Prem Prakash Pandey from BJP was elected as permanent speaker for the second assembly.

In 2008, the BJP won again but Congress MLA Bodhram Kanwar, being senior most member of the House, became protem speaker. The House then entrusted fulltime job of speaker to BJP’s Dharamlal Kaushik.

In the recently held polls, Bodhram Kanwar and deputy CLP leader Rampukar Singh contested from Congress for eighth time while CLP leader Ravindra Choubey contested for seventh time. Contrarily, no other BJP candidate than PWD minister Brijmohan Agrawal has won assembly polls for more than three times. Agrawal, who won five consecutive polls, had re-contested for sixth time this year.

Considering their previous records, all the four senior candidates are confident of their victory. However, Congress is likely set a rare record of giving protem speaker to the State for fourth time.