Gujarathi elected Speaker

In view of the election results, since the Congress-led democratic front has already proved its majority on the floor of the House, seeking a trust vote as directed by Governor P C Alexander will be a mere formality.

After the Sena-BJP alliance failed to retain power owing to intra-alliance disputes, top leaders were drafting a comprehensive action plan to dislodge the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. Since the election of the Speaker of the Lower House was the first opportunity, Sena chief Bal Thackeray and former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde held a marathon meeting with alliance legislators on Thursday night.

Apparently, a section of BJP leaders confidently told Thackeray that the alliance has sufficient strength to topple the government during the election of the Speaker or when the House takes up the motion of confidence, which will be taken up on Saturday.

8220;Today8217;s result very clearly showed that our strategy failed. Our candidate was not only defeated, but we apprehend that at least three legislators supporting the alliance voted in favour of Gujarathi,8221; according to a former BJP Minister.

He stated that it would have been better had the alliance accepted the formula proposed by the Chief Minister on a consensus candidate for the speaker8217;s post as well as deputy speaker. 8220;If we had honoured the long standing convention, we could have easily avoided today8217;s embarrassment,8221; the former BJP Minister added.

On the other hand, despite severe crisis from day one, the strategy drafted by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal proved fruitful. 8220;Besides large scale cross voting owing to the banner of revolt raised by Ranjit Deshmukh, the Sena-BJP alliance was banking on the role of the Bahujan Mahasangh and one-member parties. They were expecting that the members of these parties will remain neutral or will vote in favour of the Sena-BJP nominee. I think, their assessment was completely wrong,8221; according to a Congress Minister.

After they congratulated Gujarathi following the official announcement of his election, Deshmukh, Bhujbal, former CM Narayan Rane and former deputy CM Gopinath Munde got back to settling political scores during the debate that followed.

Deshmukh said had the election of the Speaker was by consensus, then it would have been easy to maintain cordial political atmosphere. 8220;I personally made several efforts to unanimous election, but there was no response from the Opposition benches. Ultimately, we decided to fight it out and we succeeded. I must thank the Sena-BJP led Opposition for granting us an opportunity to prove our strength on the floor of the House. Now seeking the trust vote will be a mere formality,8221; he added.

Taking a swipe at the Democratic Front, Rane said, 8220;We too felt that the election of the speaker should have been by consensus, but when the political atmosphere in the State, particularly after the declaration of results, had become so vitiated, we decided to contest. The Congress-led front is not in public interest, but has been formed for obvious political reasons.8221;

Denying that the defeat in Speaker8217;s election has demoralised the BJP-Sena alliance, Munde said, 8220;It will be wrong if you underestimate the Opposition, which is also an important pillar of democracy.8221;

Bhujbal hoped that Gujarathi will take a lead in maintaining high traditions of the Maharashtra Legislature. 8220;I feel that we should have avoided the elections in larger interest of the status of the speaker8217;s post,8221; he added.

It is a practice to offer the post of speaker to the ruling party, while the post of the deputy speaker is held by the largest opposition party. Now since there was election for the speaker8217;s post, the Congress-led front is unlikely to offer deputy speaker8217;s post to Shiv Sena, the largest Opposition party.