Madhya Pradesh: BJP MLA Girish Gautam to be elected Assembly Speaker unanimously
Bhopal: The Budget session of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly will begin on Monday and it will conclude on March 26. BJP MLA Girish Gautam on Sunday filed his nomination for the post of the Speaker. He will be elected unanimously as the main opposition Congress has refused to contest the elections to respect the chair.
Girish Gautam, a four-term MLA from Deotalab Assembly seat in Rewa district, will be the 18th speaker of the MP Vidhan Sabha. It is also a coincidence that Vindhya region will get a Speaker after 18 years after Congress' Shrinivas Tiwari.
The session will commence with the customary address of the Governor and 23 sittings will take place during this 33-day period.
Finance Minister Jagdish Devda will present the state's Budget for the year 2021-22 on February 26. This will be the eighth session of the 15th MP Assembly.
"I am happy that our new speaker Girish ji will be from Vindhya region. I am hopeful that he will take all members along in the interest of the development of MP," said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Gautam said that he has been given an important responsibility and he would leave no chance to fulfill the same. "There was no dissatisfaction in Vindhya at all. I will put in all my efforts for the development of MP," said Gautam.
Former CM and state Congress chief, Kamal Nath on Sunday tweeted, "In view of the constitutional dignity of the post of the Assembly Speaker, we decided that Congress will fully support in the election of the Speaker in a unanimous manner". Nath has also informed the Assembly secretariat not to contest the election.
Nath also said in his tweets that the BJP had never believed in parliamentary traditions from the beginning but Congress had given respect to these practices, for the years, it had broken the traditions of leaving the post of Speaker and its deputy to the ruling and the Opposition parties respectively.
In the previous Nath-led regime, the Congress had both the posts of Speaker and its Deputy because the then opposition BJP had contested for the Speaker post.
A decision to elect Speaker from Vindhya region was taken after internal rumblings in BJP for not including any leader in the state cabinet. BJP had won maximum seats from the region during previous assembly elections and the move is aimed at reducing fractions in the saffron party, said sources.
It has happened for the first time in the history of the MP Assembly that there has not been any full-time Speaker for 11 months. BJP MLA Rameshwar Sharma is holding the post as a problem-speaker.
