Unless Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows appropriate accommodation to his political opponents who laid low his hopes and ego in the recent Lok Sabha poll, there will be a contest for the Lok Sabha speaker’s position today, on June 26, when the speaker’s election is due.
In the ordinary course an upset would not be foreseeable. By definition the governing side has more MPs than its opponents. Nevertheless, there is room for much to happen.
Under the provisions, in terms of chronological time, the motion for the speaker’s election that has been received first shall be moved first by the speaker pro tem. In the event that it is the government’s motion and it is carried (the likely scenario), the contending motion automatically becomes infructuous.
On the other hand, if it is the motion of the contender (in the present instance the lone contender) that was first received by the speaker pro tem, that motion shall be put to vote first. Given the state of politics today – not only as between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its opponents and the BJP and its allies, but also within the saffron party itself – there are probabilities that can cause the government embarrassment, impacting the prime minister’s authority and standing, although the opposition bid does not meet with success.
Theoretically, a well-advertised political battle has already been set up with the filing of nomination by BJP’s Om Birla on the government side and INDIA alliance-backed Kodikunnil Suresh of the Congress, a Kerala MP and a Dalit who happens to be the most senior Lok Sabha MP to have been wilfully denied the position of speaker pro tem by the Modi cabal. Similarly well-mobilised elections for speaker were held in 1976, 1991 and 1998.
In the event that Suresh’s nomination was received before Birla’s, and there has been no duly acknowledged serving of the whip, voting patterns can be well worth watching. Birla can hardly be called a well-liked former speaker, given his record of suspending more than 100 opposition MPs for asking meaningful questions of the Modi government earlier this year. The National Democratic Alliance bloc, including its BJP component, can be in a state of flux in the event of a free vote.
In the saffron party, there is a perception that the BJP Parliamentary Party was not given due recognition by the party bosses and its meeting has not been called to elect its new leader after the Lok Sabha poll. This detracts from the legitimacy and moral authority of Modi who was hurriedly administered oath of office by Rashtrapati Bhavan. That action was at odds with the existing norms and convention and could be open to judicial adjudication.
A general melee of the members of the NDA, which included even chief ministers, wholly lacked any legal standing to nominate a leader and on that basis stake a claim to form government. In such a situation the authority of the BJP to expect wholesale compliance in the House from those elected on its ticket invites questions.
In the final analysis, any attempt to set up a structure of authority of a constitutional nature on that basis is ridden with doubtful propositions and incongruities. Modi, for all his self-propagation and flagrant self-promotion and unending arrogance who disdains consensual working, is the leader who propelled his party to defeat and himself got through at Varanasi in circumstances that have set tongues wagging.
In this situation, there is little surprise in the BJP shedding its customary cohesiveness. To what extent can the party place its fortunes in the hands of the figure who took it downhill in the parliament election? What will be the party’s likely fate in the assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand in a few months? A below par showing could well cause a run on the political bank.
It is possible that the government motion on electing Birla as speaker is taken up first and is carried. Sensing the potential fragility of the moment, NDA MPs can stick together to ward off dreaded possibilities and loss of power, whatever may happen to the BJP’s internal dynamics in the medium term.
Many uncertainties may have been avoided or postponed if Modi had agreed to willingly give the post of the deputy speaker – as much a constitutional position as that of speaker – to the opposition benches. Instead, he chose to be more like he was in 2019 when he commanded an overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha. Then he had not permitted the election of the deputy speaker, although holding that election is technically the domain of the speaker. If political voices are to be believed, one of the parties supporting the Modi bid to stay in power may be handed the position of deputy speaker as part of a bargain.
Whatever transpires in the speaker’s election, the moment is pregnant with likelihoods.
Anand K. Sahay is a journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi.