New Delhi:

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said that he hoped that actions like suspension of MPs would not be taken in the 18th Lok Sabha. Speaking shortly after NDA’s Om Birla was re-elected as the Lok Sabha speaker, Mr Yadav said he believed that the BJP MP would be impartial towards the opposition and give its leaders equal opportunity.

“I congratulate you and extend you best wishes on behalf of all my colleagues. The post that you are occupying has glorious traditions attached to it. We believe that this will continue without any discrimination and as Lok Sabha Speaker you will give equal opportunities and respect to every member and party,” he said. 

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“Impartiality is a great responsibility of this great position… We expect that no public representative’s voice will be stifled, nor will an action like expulsion take place again,” he said.

Mr Yadav was apparently referring to the unprecedented suspension of more than 100 MPs during the Winter Session of Parliament last year.

“लोकसभा के नवनिर्वाचित अध्यक्ष जी को मैं बहुत-बहुत बधाई और शुभकामनाएं देना चाहता हूं। उम्मीद है लोकसभा के अध्यक्ष के रूप में आप हर सांसद और हर दल को बराबरी का मौका और सम्मान देंगे, निष्पक्षता इस महान पद की जिम्मेदारी है, किसी भी जनप्रतिनिधि की आवाज दबाई न जाए।”

– श्री अखिलेश… pic.twitter.com/oJEOc0UMVq

— Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) June 26, 2024

“Your control is on the Opposition but it should be on the ruling side too. The House should function on your signals and not the other way round,” he said.

“I hope that you would respect the Opposition as much as you respect the ruling dispensation and let them present their side,” Mr Yadav said.

Rahul Gandhi’s Similar Appeal To Lok Sabha Speaker

Speaking before Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also made a similar appeal to Om Birla and said that “it is very important that the voice of the Opposition is allowed to be represented in this House”.

“I am confident that you will allow us to speak. The question is not how efficiently the House is run. The question is how much of India’s voice is being allowed to be heard. So the idea that you can run the House efficiently by silencing the voice of the Opposition is a non-democratic idea. And this election has shown that the people of India expect the Opposition to defend the Constitution,” Mr Gandhi said.

LIVE: Welcoming the Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha https://t.co/NvAdTFvoyP

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 26, 2024

“We are confident that by allowing the Opposition to speak, you will do your duty of defending the Constitution,” Mr Gandhi, who is also named as the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, said.

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Mr Birla, a three-time BJP MP from Rajasthan’s Kota, was elected Lok Sabha Speaker for the second consecutive time on Wednesday after he won the election by a voice vote.

Bhartruhari Mahtab, a seven-time Member of Parliament, was sworn in as pro-tem Speaker for the 18th Lok Sabha today. President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Cuttack. However, the Opposition slammed the Centre for Mr Mahtab’s appointment as the pro-tem Speaker and “overlooking” Kodikunnil Suresh, an eight-term Lok Sabha member, who apparently should have got the post as per the convention of naming the senior-most MP. They also alleged that Suresh was sidelined because “he belongs to the Dalit community”. 

Who is Bhartruhari Mahtab?

1. Born in 1957, Mr Mahtab is the son of Odisha’s first chief minister, the late Harekrushna Mahtab. After completing his schooling in Bhadrak, he pursued a Bachelor of Arts and later a Master’s Degree in English from Utkal University in 1978, according to his election affidavit.

2. After being a part of the former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for a few decades, Mr Mahtab severed ties with the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. He expressed displeasure over the party’s functioning in recent years. Subsequently, he joined the BJP, which later announced him as its candidate for the Cuttack seat. In 2024 polls, Mr Mahtab secured a historic seventh consecutive term from the seat, defeating his former party colleague Santrupt Misra by 57,077 votes.

3.  Mr Mahtab is a seven-term MP from the Cuttack parliamentary constituency in Odisha, making him one of the longest-serving parliamentarians in the 18th Lok Sabha. The 66-year-old has been representing the Cuttack seat in the Lower House of Parliament since 1998. He was on the panel of chairpersons in the 17th Lok Sabha.

4. The choice of Mr Mahtab to serve as the pro-tem Speaker comes after the BJP’s resounding victory in Odisha, where the party managed to dislodge Mr Patnaik’s 24-year regime. While the saffron party bagged 78 seats and formed a government in the state. The BJP also registered a win on 20 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

5. During his last term, he served as the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Labour, Textiles and Skill Development. He was also appointed as the deputy chairperson of the Committee on Official Language, besides being a member of the Public Accounts Committee.  Mr Mahtab also serves as the owner and editor of The Prajatantra, an Odia daily that was founded by his father.