`Tai` Sumitra Mahajan elected Speaker of Lok Sabha

Senior BJP leader Sumitra Mahajan was formally elected as the next speaker of the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Zee Media Bureau New Delhi: Senior BJP leader Sumitra Mahajan was formally elected as Lok Sabha Speaker on Friday. With her election, Mahajan has become the second woman after Meira Kumar to hold the post. Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed her name. Congress Parliamentary Party leader Mallikarjun Kharge and others seconded it. In her first address to the house, she said, “We have the duty to fulfill the hope that the people of this country have invested in us. That is what this janadesh is.”

“This House has a rich tradition, let us be aware of that, respect it always. My request that we all work in democratic manner,” she added. The others who proposed her name included AIADMK`s M Thambidurai, Trinamool Congress` Sudip Bandopadhyay, and Samajwadi Party`s Mulayam Singh Yadav. Besides the Prime Minister, other Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who proposed her name include Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Mahajan, 72, is an eight-term member of the Lok Sabha from Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Representing Indore in the Lok Sabha since 1989, she was a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government from 1999 to 2004. Mahajan was elected from Indore for the eighth time in the 2014 General Election by a margin of 4.67 lakh votes. Mahajan, lovingly called `Tai`, is known for her amicable nature and has her friends and admirers in all parties. The name of AIADMK member M Thambidurai is doing the rounds for the post of Deputy Speaker since the party supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha had a lengthy meeting with the Prime Minister two days back. The AIADMK recently made Thambidurai its Parliamentary party leader, a post he had held in the last Lok Sabha as well. Thambidurai represents Karur Lok Sabha constituency and has been a Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha some time back. Thambidurai was deputy speaker between 1985 and 1989. With the BJP-led NDA not having majority in the Rajya Sabha, it wants support from other parties and for this purpose, AIADMK, which has ten members in the Upper House, is apparently being wooed. However, there has been no formal word either from the BJP or AIADMK on the issue. In the 245-member Rajya Sabha, the BJP has just 42 members and its ally Shiv Sena-3, Shirmomani Akali Dal-3 and TDP-6. RPI-A is having one member. (With Agency inputs)