Maharashtra to get deputy speaker after 4 yrs

Maharashtra Legislative Assembly will get deputy Speaker after the longest gap of four years, with the election for the vacant constitutional post being announced Wednesday.

The election will be held on November 30, Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagde said after question hour.

The 13th Assembly would have gone down into history as the one without a deputy speaker for the longest gap of period had the elections been not announced. Vasant Purke of the Congress was the last deputy speaker before 2014. He had held the post in the previous assembly.

However, the post has been lying vacant since the last four years after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis assumed office on October 31, 2014 and won the trust vote on November 12.

Announcing the schedule, the speaker said the process of filing of nominations will begin Wednesday itself and scrutiny of papers will be done on Thursday. The nominations can be withdrawn by 10.30 AM on November 30.

"The election, if necessary, will be taken up between 11.30 am and 1 pm on November 30," he said. The 13th Assembly has met 15 times since October 2014 when the new government took over.

The current winter session is the 16th session of the assembly. Deputy Speaker is elected from among the members of the Assembly.

In 288-member House, the BJP is the largest party with 122 MLAs, followed by the Shiv Sena 63, the Congress 42 and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) 41. During the Sena-BJP rule between 1995-99, Sharad Tasare of Congress held the post of Deputy Speaker.

Later, during the 15-year rule of the Congress-NCP, the speaker's post was with the NCP while the Congress had its nominee on the deputy speaker's post. Of the 22 deputy speakers so far, a majority were from the Congress party.

Gajananrao Garud, who served as deputy speaker between March 21, 1978 and April 5, 1979, was an Independent MLA. Suryakant Dongre, who held the post between April 7, 1979 and June 9, 1980 belonged to the Republican Party of india (Khobragade group).

Kamalkishore Kadam (March 1, 1985 to June 22, 1986) was from the Congress (Socialist) which at the time was headed by current NCP supremo Sharad Pawar. Laxman Alias Anna Joshi, who was the deputy speaker from October 20, 1990 and July 3, 1991, was from the BJP while Moreshwar Termude (July 19, 1991 to March 11, 1995) was from the Janata Party.

Before the state of Maharashtra came into existence in 1960, there were five deputy speakers of the Legislative Assembly of Bombay Province, which later came to be known as the bilingual Bombay State.

The Congress' Shanmugappa Angadi was deputy speaker of the Assembly of Bombay Province from 1946 to 1952. Deendayal Gupta, who was the deputy speaker of the bilingual state from June 20, 1957 to April 30, 1960, went on to become the first deputy speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on May 1, 1960. He continued on the post till March 3, 1962.

(With inputs from agencies.)