The unanimous — and smooth — election of the mild-mannered BJP MP Sumitra Mahajan as Speaker on Friday suggests that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his way in the choice of the presiding officer without any fuss. So comprehensive was the BJP’s victory under Mr Modi’s leadership that there never arose any need for behind-the-scene negotiation with the Congress, the main Opposition party, whose shattering defeat left it in no position to bargain even for the post of deputy speaker.
A mere marginal win for the BJP in the Lok Sabha election may have left the door open for other outcomes if the Congress were in a position to leverage other Opposition groups and, indeed, some of BJP’s coalition partners. In that event the BJP may have found it necessary to pitch for someone more combative from its ranks to take the Speaker’s chair, someone capable of handling a difficult Opposition.
Since that is not the case, the deputy speaker’s post may not be offered to the Congress at all but to any other Opposition party that Mr Modi may hope to woo aggressively in exchange for its support in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP’s numbers are short. As matters stand, the Congress can’t even be sure its Lok Sabha leader would automatically be bestowed the position of the Leader of the Opposition. At her press conference on being elected, Ms Mahajan made it clear she is still to decide whether the Congress would get the post of LoP. This would not have been a matter of discussion if the largest Opposition party had enough Lok Sabha MPs to constitute 10 per cent of the House.
The Speaker would be well advised, though, to let the Congress have that post, if only for practical considerations. When it comes to the appointment of certain important institutional positions — for example, the Lokpal or the CVC — it is mandatory for the government to consult the LoP. If Ms Mahajan overlooks this aspect, then it would become clear that the BJP would have commenced its tenure in the 16th Lok Sabha on a combative note in relation to the Opposition.
That may not be the best thing for democracy. But it would show the government’s mind. Whether Mr Modi wishes to go that way will be clear soon enough. The PM’s choice of Ms Mahajan for Speaker, rather than the old warhorse and party’s putative patriarch L.K. Advani, also indicates how
Mr Modi wishes to deal with dissent within the ruling party. Mr Advani is now having to rub shoulders with BJP back-benchers, and hardly seems in a position to define his own role in the party he helped nurture in another, forgotten, historical era.
