NEW DELHI: The Congress-I nominee Shivraj V.Patil appears set to be elected Wednesday as speaker of the Tenth Lok Sabha (lower house of Indian parliament) following an “agreement” be- tween the ruling party and the main opposition party, BJP.

Though a set of nominations was filed Tuesday on behalf of the BJP candidate Jaswant Singh, the party’s parliamentary leader, L.K. Advani, made it clear to re- porters in the evening that

this  parth had entered into an “open agreement” with the Congress (I) under which the ruling party would have its nominee elected as speaker while the BJP deputy speaker.

The house will elect its speaker Wednesday afternoon at the conclusion of oath-taking by the newly elected members. However, a Congress-I spokesman, Prof. C.P. Thakur, told the press that his party had not given any assurance to any party about the post of deputy speaker, but it would follow the convention of giving the deputy speakership to ‘recognized’ opposition party. “There is no understanding, no deal, no assurance,” he added.

Advani, on the other hand, told reporters that the BJP may not be pressing the motion in favor of Jaswant Singh for the speaker’s post as it was in favor of following the convention that the ruling party should have the speakership and the opposition, the deputy speakership.

Advani said the BJP, which considered the candidature of Rabi Ray for the post, changed its mind following the stand taken by the National Front and Left Parties that they would have nothing to do with the BJP on this issue.

This will be the first time there will be a contest for the post of speaker, who had always been elected unanimously so far.

Lok Sabha officials said the motion of the leader of the house, of present and voting.

In a house with an effective strength of 509 members including two nominated, the congress (1) and its allies account for 244, while the BJP 117 and the NF-LF combine over 132.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP) Tuesday said efforts should be made to avoid a contest to the post of the speaker and appealed to the Congress-I to evolve ways to arrive at a consensus of a “commonly agreed candidate”.

The SJP general secretary Satya Prakas Mulviya told reporters that the parliamentary party of the SJP which met here late Monday night, had authorized Chandra Shekhar to take a decision on the proposed motion of the vote of confidence of the ruling party.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 12, 1991