Shankar Chaudhary elected Speaker of 15th Assembly; Jetha Ahir is deputy

Bharwad’s name as Deputy Speaker was proposed by senior minister Kanu Desai and seconded by Rushikesh Patel.

Both the opposition parties in the House — Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) — did not oppose the proposals following which the two were declared elected unopposed by Protem Speaker Yogesh Patel.

Congratulating Chaudhary on his appointment as the Speaker of the Assembly, CM Bhupendra Patel expressed confidence that the House will continue to get neutral guidance from the former.

The CM also mentioned Chaudhary’s contribution in social and cooperative sector. He specifically cited an example when Chaudhary donated 10 bigha land for providing housing to nomadic tribes of vadi-madari.

Senior Congress legislator Shailesh Parmar too congratulated Chaudhary on his appointment while adding that when opposition has a thin presence in the House (17 of Congress and five of AAP) against BJP’s mammoth majority of 156 out of total 182 seats, expectations were high that the former will ensure that voice of people gets heard through opposition.

Parmar also rued that in a departure from legislative tradition, the ruling party did not consult the opposition in proposing the name for the post of Speaker.

Parmar said that for the past some time, Gujarat Assembly had started a new tradition of deciding time limit for the members to speak on the basis of their strength of numbers although there was no such provision in the rules of Gujarat Assembly.

“If the time period to speak is given on pro-rata basis then as an opposition we will not be able to put forward our issues under any circumstances. It is a decision of the Speaker (whether to continue this system or not) and therefore we will definitely expect that you allocate more time to us,” he said.

Another senior Congress legislator Arjun Modhwadia said that he was pretty confident that Chaudhary, as a Speaker, would act like Lord Krishna in Mahabharata. Modhwadia also expressed hope that while following past traditions, Chaudhary will also start some new ones like live broadcasting of proceedings of Gujarat Assembly.

Chaudhary expressed his gratitude towards the Assembly members for his unanimous election and added that he would make full efforts to remain neutral while conducting the House proceedings.

Chaudhary (52) is a native of Vadnagar village of Radhanpur tehsil of Patan. He is elected to Gujarat assembly for the sixth time from Tharad of Banaskantha. Earlier, he has represented the assembly constituencies of Vav and Radhanpur.

In the government of Anandiben Patel, Chaudhary was a Minister of State for Health, Urban Development, Transport and Environment.

In BJP state organisation, Chaudhary was also party president for Patan district. He has also worked as general secretary of Gujarat BJP.

Chaudhary is also a leading name in the cooperative sector of North Gujarat— he is chairman of Banas Dairy.

Jetha Ahir is a six time MLA from Shehra constituency of Panchmahal. He is also the chairman of Panchmahal dairy and was the deputy Speaker in the last assembly as well.