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Journalism of Courage
With the Congress expecting its eight-time MP Kodikunnil Suresh to be chosen as the pro-tem Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha as per parliamentary norms, a controversy has erupted after seven-term Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab of the BJP was named for the post, with the Opposition party claiming it is against convention.
Though there is no mention of the post in the Constitution, according to the official “Handbook on the Working of Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs”, the senior-most member (in terms of number of years of membership of the House) is generally chosen as the pro-tem Speaker until the Speaker of the House is elected.
Sources in the Opposition camp said the government’s decision not to select Suresh, the seniormost parliamentarian in the Lok Sabha had “turned the atmosphere vicious”, with some in the Congress alleging that it was because Suresh is Dalit. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, the Congress’s main rival in the southern state, also hit out at the Union government for overlooking Suresh. “Has BJP got an answer to those who suspect that Sangh Parivar’s upper-caste politics had worked behind this decision?” Vijayan asked on Friday.
However, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju responded by saying that Mahtab was chosen as he is the longest-serving MP in terms of consecutive tenures. This, he explained, was in line with practice in the Westminster system. Mahtab has served seven consecutive terms while Suresh’s eight terms include breaks in 1998 and 2004.
Suresh who won his eighth Lok Sabha elections from Mavelikkara in the recent polls has represented the seat four times in the past and the erstwhile Adoor constituency four times. He was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1989, and has lost only twice while retaining the Mavelikkara seat since 2009, when he was elevated as Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment in the second UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Seen as one of the frontrunners for the Kerala Congress chief’s post in 2021, Suresh is now a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body and also serves as the working president of the Congress’s Kerala unit. He has also served as an All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary.
In the recent elections, Suresh defeated CPI’s young turk C A Arun Kumar by 10,000 votes, among the lowest margins in the state, in a constituency where the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) holds all the seven Assembly segments.
Even before the pro-tem Speaker row, Suresh has had his fair share of controversies. In 2010, the Kerala High Court disqualified him over his caste status. The court was acting upon a plea filed by his opponent R S Anil of the CPI who contended that Suresh belonged to the OBC Cheramar Christian community and not the Cheramar Hindu community that is categorised as a Scheduled Caste and thus was ineligible to contest from the SC-reserved Mavelikkara seat.
Suresh then moved the Supreme Court that set aside the High Court’s order and observed that he was eligible to contest from Mavelikkara. The Mavelikkara MP has six criminal cases relating to rioting, unlawful assembly and obstructing a public servant from discharging duty registered against him, and declared assets worth Rs 1.5 crore in the Lok Sabha polls.
