Karia Munda, one of the seniormost tribal leaders of the country, is set to become the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha.
Once he’s formally elected to the post, it’ll be a dalit-tribal combo which will be presiding over the Lok Sabha in the next five years. Former Union minister Meira Kumar was on June 3 unanimously elected as the Speaker.
UPA and NDA filed 13 sets of nomination papers on behalf of Munda on Friday. He was chosen by the BJP as the Deputy Speaker candidate after the Congress-led UPA offered the post to the Opposition as per convention.
Leader of the Opposition L K Advani signed the first set of nomination papers for Munda which were seconded by BJP President Rajnath Singh. In the next set, Deputy Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj proposed the tribal leader’s name for the post which was seconded by Ananth Kumar.
The BJP veteran, who made it to the Lok Sabha from his old constituency of Khunti, which lies of the outskirts of the Jharkhand capital, Ranchi, for the sixth time, will be unanimously elected as the deputy speaker on Monday as no other MP has filed his nomination papers for the post. His candidature has been been backed by parties across the board, barring the Left, which has not proposed or endorsed his name.
Among the other NDA leaders who proposed Mr Munda’s candidature included JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav, Shiv Sena’s Anant Geete, Akali Dal’s Ratan Singh Ajnala and RLD’s Ajit Singh.
The UPA leaders who proposed Mr Munda’s name for the deputy speaker’s post included Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee (seconded by parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal), NCP’s Sharad Pawar, Trinamool Congress’ Sudip Bandopadhyaya, DMK’s T R Baalu and IUML’s E Ahamed.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and SP’s Reoti Raman Singh too proposed the BJP leader’s name for the post.
