Rahul Narwekar is Fadnavis’s Speaker in Assembly

Mumbai: The special Sunday session of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly reaffirmed the election of BJP’s young 45-year-old leader Rahul Narwekar as Speaker of the lower house through a voice vote, put to a further standing voice ballot by Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal.

Even as Narwekar took charge of the state assembly, many MLAs from the opposition benches exploited the opportunity to speak in the house and, while congratulating Narwekar, also critiqued Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for having installed a relatively new entrant to the BJP to such an important constitutional post. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders including Ajit Pawar and Jayant Patil made apparently sarcastic comments over Narwekar’s candidature as he is a relative outsider from the BJP, having earlier been with the Shiv Sena and NCP. Jayant Patil pointed out that the move was likely to raise the hackles of the BJP cadre.

Narwekar registered a total 164 votes in his favour, while two BJP MLAs Laxman Jagtap and Mukta Tilak, missed out the session being medically unfit, even as Samajwadi Party MLAs Abu Azmi, Rais Sheikh and AIMIM MLA Shah Farouqh Anwar abstained from the voting process. Meanwhile, the opposition MVA combine (minus the 39 rebel MLAs of the Shiv Sena) put up 107 MLA votes for the Sena candidate Rajan Salvi propped up for the speaker post. While the remaining 16 Shiv Sena loyalist MLAs voted for Salvi, the NCP had a strength of 46 MLAs (as Nawab Malik and Anil Deshmukh are in jail, four MLAs remained absent and Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal could only vote if there was a tie) and the Congress had 42 MLAs (two MLAs remaining absent).

A senior BJP leader told First India, “The BJP leadership and party cadre were also less than enthused by Fadnavis’s choice for the Speaker’s post, not just considering his relatively young age but also since the Speaker’s post is normally reserved for a very senior and experienced party leader considering its constitutional importance.” He added that the MVA alliance would now be ruing the decision by Congress’ Speaker Nana Patole over 1.5 years back to resign as Speaker of the house, leaving the post vacant until now. A Sena source told this paper, “Had the Congress filled up the post of the Speaker it would have been difficult for the Sena rebels under Eknath Shinde to pull down the MVA government as the Speaker would have immediately disqualified them. In his absence, Deputy Speaker Zirwal’s motion to disqualify 16 rebel MLAs, which was challenged in the Supreme Court and will be decided on July 11.”