The Congress won the elections to the posts of Legislative Assembly Speaker and Legislative Council Chairman in Karnataka on Friday.
While G S Patil was elected Speaker, Saleem Ahmed was elected Legislative Council Chairman.
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Patil is a four-time MLA from Ron constituency. His name for the post was proposed by Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, with Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwara seconding it. Pro-tem Speaker T B Jayachandra declared Patil elected after the voice vote.
The post of the Speaker fell vacant after U T Khader resigned from it to be inducted as a minister in the Shivakumar-led Cabinet. The BJP and the JD(S) had boycotted the Speaker’s election.
At the Council, elections were conducted by pro-tem Chairman Puttanna. Prior to the election, MLC and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president B K Hariprasad proposed Ahmed’s name, which Leader of the House Dr Yathindra Siddaramaiah seconded.
The Opposition BJP proposed P H Pujar for the post, with the JD(S) backing the proposal. The proposals to elect the Chairman were put to a vote, after which Ahmed was declared the winner.
Ahmed, among the senior legislators in the Council, was first elected MLC in 1996 and has served multiple terms in the upper house.
BJP protest
Earlier in the day, the BJP staged a protest inside the Vidhana Soudha premises for not inducting a woman into the state Cabinet. Of the 32 ministers in the Shivakumar ministry, all are men. One berth is still left vacant.
Speaking at the protest, BJP MLA and former minister Shashikala Jolle said that not having even a woman in the Cabinet was an insult to the community. “This government wants the vote of women, but does not provide a berth in the Cabinet,” she said, adding that people of the state would teach the ‘anti-women’ Congress a suitable lesson in the coming days.
File photo of former Karnataka Speaker U T Khader. 
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