Perspective
By DK Sinha and Amit Srivastava
Patna: Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party succeeded in making its own leader Vinay Kumar Sinha as the Speaker of re-constituted state assembly, it seems the party has a long future plan in doing so.
The Speaker of Legislative Assembly is usually chosen with consensus among the ruling and opposition parties. The rare two occasions when the election to the post of the Bihar assembly took place was in March 1967 and then in March 1969, the 4th and 5th Bihar Assembly respectively. After a long gap of more than 50 years Bihar saw again the election to the post of the Speaker to the 17th Bihar Assembly.
In this context, the election for the Speaker of the 17h Bihar assembly was a historic one and was marked by great deal of political manoeuvring and high drama leading to final voting. It was a rare voting session to select the Speaker of the Bihar assembly. The NDA candidate Vijay Kumar Sinha emerged victorious, defeating the RJD candidate Awadh Bihari Chaudhary by a margin of 12 votes to bag the post of the Speaker for the 17th Bihar Assembly. The opposition further created uproarious scenes demanding a secret ballot voting but it was again overruled by the chair of the house. The election was finally conducted by raising of hands.
Once the headcount was taken, the NDA’s Vijay Kumar Sinha emerged victorious with 126 votes whereas the RJD candidate had 114 votes.
More drama had unfolded earlier when the alleged audio clip of the Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad’s poaching attempt on NDA MLAs, resulted in a great commotion as soon as the house commenced. The purported call by Lalu from inside the prison to persuade a BJP MLA to abstain during the voting also drove the point how important the role of Speaker could be in the future.
Tejashwi Yadav, by fielding his own party candidate for the post of Speaker, has dropped ample hints that he would not sit by and allow the NDA government with a fragile majority a smooth sailing. Dalit MLAs are reportedly annoyed over being deprived of all the important posts including the all-important post of the Speaker. The political developments in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in recent times have proved how crucial is the post of the Speaker.
The post of Speaker is going to be crucial in view of the extremely thin majority of the National Democratic Alliance as Hindustani Awam Morcha leader Jitan Ram Manjhi and Vikassheel Insaan Party chief Mukesh Sahni together or even separately can pull the rug to destabilise the Nitish Kumar led government. Vinay Sinha, like deputy chief ministers Tarkishore Prasad Singh and Renu Devi ,had held the post of minister in the past but was never considered a front-ranking party leader.
Even as counting of votes was in progress on November 10, it was widely speculated that Kameshwar Chaupal, the Dalit leader who laid the foundation brick for Ram Temple in Ayodhya, would be the new Speaker. Even the name of senior BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav was doing the rounds but the Speaker post ultimately went to Vinay Kumar Sinha, a Bhumihar.
BJP, by giving the post of Speaker to a Bhumihar, is also also trying hard to retain the support of the community intact Box. Through selective voting, the Bhumihars have made it clear that they cannot be taken for granted. According to political analysts, Bhumihar almost en bloc voted for the BJP, in many constituencies where JD(U) was contesting the seat, they either remained indifferent or voted for other candidates particularly Lok Janshakti Party candidates.
