Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urgently initiate the process of electing a deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha, underlining the ongoing delay in the matter despite constitutional provisions for it.
In a letter to PM Modi, Kharge pointed out that each Lok Sabha, from the first to the sixteenth, had seen the appointment of a deputy speaker in both Houses of Parliament, adding that it had also been a “well-established convention” to appoint the person from among the members of the principal Opposition party.
“However, for the first time in independent India’s history, this position has remained vacant for two consecutive Lok Sabha terms. No Deputy Speaker was elected during the Seventeenth Lok Sabha and this concerning precedent continues in the ongoing Eighteenth Lok Sabha,” Kharge pointed out.
Terming it a highly concerning matter, Kharge underlined that Article 93 of the Constitution mandates the election of both the speaker and the deputy speaker of the House of the people. Constitutionally, he added, the deputy speaker is the second-highest presiding officer of the House after the speaker, with Article 93 of the Constitution providing for an appointment to the post.
“The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker thereof and, so often as the office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker becomes vacant, the House shall choose another member to be Speaker or Deputy Speaker, as the case may be,” Kharge said, quoting the provisions under the section.
With regard to the election of the deputy speaker, he added, Article 93 stipulates that the House shall choose one “as soon as may be”. He added that traditionally, the deputy speaker has been elected in the second or third session of a newly constituted Lok Sabha.
“The procedure for this election mirrors that of the Speaker, with the only distinction being that the date for the Deputy Speaker’s election is fixed by the Speaker, as per Rule 8(1) of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha,” Kharge said.
A vacancy on the post did “not augur well for India’s democratic polity and is also in violation of well laid out provisions of the Constitution”, Kharge added, urging PM Modi to initiate the process without any further delay, keeping with the traditions of the House and the democratic ethos of Parliament.
