SyndicationJun012009
11:48:26 am
11:48:26 am
Meira Kumar set to become Speaker
NEW DELHI: Union Water Resources Minister Meira Kumar resigned from the Council of Ministers on Sunday night. President Pratibha Patil has accepted her resignation, according to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.With her resignation, Ms. Kumar has set forth on a short and seemingly hurdle-free journey to becoming the first woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly supported Ms. Kumar for the post after confirming that the Congress had proposed her name.Briefing mediapersons here, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had called up L.K. Advani and mentioned Ms. Kumar’s name. She also confirmed that the post of Deputy Speaker had been offered to the BJP. Though several names were doing the rounds for the post, she said no decision had been taken and the party’s Parliamentary Board would meet soon to take a decision.As for reports that the Congress had zeroed in on Ms. Kumar’s name for Speaker only because the earlier “front runner,” Kishore Chandra Deo, was unacceptable to the BJP, Ms. Swaraj said no other name had ever been proposed to her party. Also, Mr. Deo confirmed to The Hindu that he had never been sounded out for the post by his party leadership.No official announcement While the BJP’s stance has cleared the decks for the smooth elevation of Ms. Kumar to the Speaker post, no official announcement was forthcoming from the Congress. But clearly the Congress leadership had informally sounded out the Lok Sabha Secretariat. Lok Sabha Secretary-General P.D.T. Achary met Ms. Kumar on Sunday, purportedly to discuss procedural matters.Lok Sabha Secretariat sources said that besides procedural matters, another issue that needed to be cleared up was whether she would take oath as a Minister or an ordinary member of the House. There is a pecking order for the oath-taking as per which the Leader of the House takes oath first, followed by the Leader of the Opposition, the UPA chairperson, panel of chairpersons, Ministers, and then members.Earlier in the day, Ms. Kumar met Congress president Sonia Gandhi, but declined to speak to the media. Congress leaders maintain that Ms. Kumar’s name for the post was not an after-thought but had always been under consideration.
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