Adhir Chowdhury seeks election of Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker, wants preference for Congress

On Wednesday, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury called for the election of the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha to be held in the upcoming Monsoon session. Writing to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Chowdhury reminded him that the seat of the Deputy Speaker must be filled either by election or consensus as per the constitutional mandate. He mentioned that this post is offered to the opposition party by default.

According to him, this was an opportune moment as the Rajya Sabha is also set to elect the Deputy Chairman. AIADMK's M Thambidurai served as the Deputy Lok Sabha Speaker during the first term of the Modi government. However, this position is lying vacant since May 2019, which makes this the longest period of a Lok Sabha functioning without a Deputy Speaker. But, the proceedings of the Lower House are not hampered in the absence of the Speaker owing to the existence of a constitution-mandated panel of 10 MPs. 

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Monsoon session of Parliament

The Monsoon session, delayed because of the COVID-19 crisis, will be held from September 14 to October 1 without any weekend break. The chambers of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha shall be used to seat the MPs. Already, the secretariat of both Houses of Parliament have issued guidelines urging the parliamentarians to wear masks and observe social distancing. On the first day, Lok Sabha will conduct its proceedings from 9 am to 1 pm while Rajya Sabha members will transact business between 3 pm and 7 pm.

For the rest of the session, the Lok Sabha members shall sit from 3 pm to 7 pm. On the other hand, Rajya Sabha proceedings will take place from 9 am to 1 pm. The two-hour break shall be used to disinfect the Parliament. MPs, their support staff and security staff will have to undergo a test for COVID-19 prior to the beginning of the session. Furthermore, Question Hour has been done away with amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, there are 43,70,128 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 33,98,844 patients have been discharged while 73,890 deaths have been recorded.

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