Even before the commencement of the session, differences cropped up over the appointment of pro-tem speaker. It was on the Chief Minister’s recommendation that the Governor administered oath to Deepak Saxena as pro-tem speaker. Deepak Saxena is a close confident of Chief Minister Kamal Nath. Former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan objected to Saxena’s appointment. He was of the view that as per the convention the senior most member of the House should be appointed pro-tem speaker. This was challenged by the ruling party, which cited several instances from the past when even comparatively junior legislators were appointed pro-tem speaker.

The pro-tem speaker performs two crucial tasks: administering oath to the newly elected members and then to complete the process of election of Speaker.

Barring one or two exceptions Speaker and deputy Speakers have been elected unanimously. According to this tradition, the office of the Speaker goes to the ruling party and that of the deputy to the main opposition party. The BJP chose to go against this tradition and decided to contest the post of Speaker. Perhaps by doing so it wanted to test the claim of the Congress that it enjoys the support of the majority. With this objective in view BJP sponsored one of its tribal MLAs for the Speaker’s post. The moment the Vidhan Sabha assembled on Tuesday the pro-tem Speaker read out the proposal tabled by the ruling party sponsoring its candidate. After that he announced the election of Narmada Prasad Prajapati as the Speaker. Pro-tem Speaker did not read the proposal of the opposition. This led to loud protests by the BJP members. They alleged that the pro-tem Speaker deliberately did not read the proposal of BJP to sponsor their candidate. To register their protest they walked out. BJP not only walked out of the House but also boycotted the Governor’s address.

After this NP Prajapati was elected Speaker. BJP called it murder of democracy and marched three kilometres to Governor Anandi Ben Patel. Congress pointed out that it had gone by the rule book. Prajapati got all 120 votes of Congress and allies and the alliance passed its first floor test. The last time a Speaker’ election was held was in 1972.

Prajapati, energy minister in the Digvijaya Singh cabinet, is a three-time MLA from Gotegaon seat. Chief Minister Kamal Nath congratulated him and said “I am happy that a person like you has been elected unanimously by us. People’s expectations have changed over the years and with you in that seat, tradition of the House will be upheld, maintained and protected”.

BJP, however, alleged tradition was broken this very day. Terming pro-tem Speaker Deepak Saxena’s decision not to accept BJP’s proposal for Vijay Shah’s candidature as anti democratic, Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the party would seek legal opinion in the matter. “It is unfortunate, but we were compelled to walk out of the House. This is a black day for democracy and in the history of Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha,” said Chouhan.

The assembly secretariat said that the election of the Congress candidate was in accordance with the Rules of Procedures and Conduct of Business in Madhya Pradesh Legislature Assembly. Before the election both Congress and Opposition BJP were quoting the same rule book and interpreting the Rule 7 laid down for Speaker’s election in their own way.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan claimed “the pro-tem Speaker permitted only Congress candidate’s name to be proposed. He did not permit me into propose the name of Vijay Shah”.

Countering this Chief Minister, Kamal Nath said “They (BJP) knew since morning that they did not have the numbers. For the past 15 days, they are repeating that this is a minority government. We wanted to prove to them that this is a majority government”.

Replying to questions of media persons regarding Rule 7, Principal Secretary state assembly, Avdesh Pratap Singh, said “Election of Speaker falls in Rule 7(iv) of the rule book. We have to be clear here that election of Speaker is not a regular type of election where the candidate or nominee fills his or her own form”. “It is an election after a proposal made by members of the House. The Rule Book provides that the proposals are to be dealt with in sequence or progression. First proposal to be addressed first”. And if more than 50% members pass the same, then the next proposal is not required, he added.

It is learnt that Congress may not offer deputy Speaker’s post to the BJP. So far Speaker’s and deputy Speaker’s posts were held by ruling party and opposition respectively. (IPA Service)