Lucknow. Rebel MLA Nitin Agrawal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) backed Samajwadi Party (SP) was elected in the election for the post of Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in Uttar Pradesh, which was held amid allegations and counter allegations during the assembly session on Monday. He defeated SP candidate Narendra Singh Verma by 244 votes. Nitin Agarwal got 304 and Narendra Singh Verma got 60 votes. He has become the 18th Deputy Speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. Nitin Hardoi, son of former MP Naresh Agarwal, is MLA from Sadar seat and Verma from Mahmudabad constituency of Sitapur.
The voting process, which started at 11 am in the Vidhan Bhavan premises, went on till 3 pm. Out of 368 votes cast for the Deputy Speaker election, Nitin Agarwal got 304 and Narendra Singh Verma got 60 votes while four votes were declared invalid. The Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party boycotted the election but their rebel MLAs took part in the polls. There was also cross voting on behalf of different parties in the election.
BJP’s 295 out of 304 MLAs were present in the House to take part in voting, while its ally in power Apna Dal (S) had seven out of nine MLAs present. Of the seven members of the Congress who boycotted the election, two rebel MLAs took part in the voting. Barring Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party President Om Prakash Rajbhar, who broke ties with the BJP, the remaining three members of the party also cast their vote. Three independent members and the lone member of the RLD, which has an alliance with the SP, also participated in the voting.
At the same time, six rebel BSP MLAs who walked out of the house by announcing boycott of elections and two disaffiliated members were also present in the house. Thus out of 396 elected members, 28 did not participate in the election.
There was fierce fighting between the ruling party and the opposition regarding the election. As soon as the assembly proceedings began at 11 am, the Leader of Opposition said that the Deputy Speaker belongs to the main opposition party, but the ruling party has created a situation of elections by fielding a candidate for the post. The ruling party has tarnished the parliamentary tradition. He demanded to postpone the election and unanimously declare the Vice-President by holding a meeting of the ruling party and the opposition.
In response, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said that we waited for four and a half years but the main opposition party could not decide on any candidate. The same thing happened during the BSP rule from 2007 to 2012 and the SP rule from 2012-17. The tradition has been broken by the opposition. Leader of Opposition told Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that ‘Show a big heart, widen your chest, what will happen if you say only 56 inch chest?’ SP candidate Narendra Verma appealed to the members of the house to vote on the voice of conscience
At around 12 noon, Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit announced the commencement of the voting process. The time allotted for voting was three hours. The names of the members of the Legislative Assembly were called sequentially and they continued to take turns to put the ballot papers in the ballot box placed behind the Speaker’s podium.
Due to not being a member of the Legislative Assembly, the Chief Minister did not cast his vote, but after the commencement of the voting, he was present in the House for about a quarter of an hour. Polling was declared over at 3 pm and the counting of votes began by opening the ballot box at 3.20 pm. At 3.49 pm Yogi returned to the House and at 3.53 pm the Speaker of the Assembly declared the election results. The assembly session was adjourned sine die after the election of the Deputy Speaker and the agenda of the meeting.
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