Mamata gains in Deputy Speaker election episode

NEW DELHI, August 4: When it came to the crunch, nobody wanted a showdown. The election of the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha was getting too close to the bone of the BJP, and of the Congress. When Mamata Banerjee offered a way out, the major groups seized it. While it was politically expedient for all parties to defer the election, the Lok Sabha will be without a deputy speaker for six months after the constitution of the House, which is unprecedented.

Technically, BJP’s defeat need not have meant the end of the government. But it would have spelt the beginning of the end. And for the MPs of mainstream parties, a situation which could lead towards elections was too much of a risk to take. There is little indication so far that Sonia Gandhi is ready to try and form an alternative government, even though she has exhorted the Congress to be ready for any eventuality. TheBJP allies were only too aware of the fallout of voting against Rita Verma, even as they were holding out threats. (Mamata had threatened tomake herself scarce. Jayalalitha sent a message to S R Muthiah not to put his signature to the motion.) Abdul Ghafoor of the Samata, who expressed his preference for P M Sayeed and for the time worn convention of giving deputy speakership to the major opposition party in Parliament, said as much.

The Congress too chose to move back from the brink for the same reason. With a difference of 18, the numbers were not in its favour, though no one knows what might have happened had push came to shove. But as things stood, the victory of the BJP would have given a new lease of life to an otherwise deflated ruling combine. The Congress chose to fight another day.

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Having taken a position on Sayeed, who is a Muslim and nine time MP acceptable to the entire non-BJP forces, it will now be very difficult for the Congress to put forward another name or agree to one. The BJP had sent the Congress feelers for consensus on someone other than Verma or Sayeed. The name of Congress MP Manoranjan Bhakta came up as apossibility and it was suggested that Sayeed become the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, a position held by Bhakta, and Bhakta be made deputy speaker.

Sayeed was not acceptable to a section of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. With Najma Heptuallah already relected as RS’s deputy chairman, they had reservations about deputy presiding officer on both Houses being Muslims.