Rahul Narvekar has been elected as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly for the second time. Earlier in 2020, he became the chairman for two and a half years.
BJP MLA Rahul Narvekar was elected unopposed as the Speaker of the 15th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. Narvekar is the second person to be re-elected to the post of Speaker of the Legislative Assembly after the formation of the state in 1960. Before him, Balasaheb Bharde was the only member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly to be elected as Speaker for two consecutive terms.
On the final day, the remaining 4 MLAs took oath. It included Jayant Patil and 3 more MLAs from his party. Shiv Sena's Vilas Bhumre, Shiv Sena's (UBT) Varun Sardesai, Manoj Jamsutkar and NCP's Shekhar Nikam are yet to take oath. However, he can later take the oath of office of the Speaker.
CM Devendra Fadnavis's confidence motion was passed here on the third and last day of Maharashtra Assembly. This proposal was presented by Shiv Sena MLA Uday Samant. Apart from this, 14 ordinances were also introduced in the assembly.
Governor CP Radhakrishnan is yet to address a joint session of both houses of the state legislature. The winter session of the Legislative Assembly will run from December 16 to December 21 in Nagpur.
MVA did not field a candidate against Narvekar
Rahul Narvekar, MLA of BJP's Colaba seat, filed his nomination papers on December 8. He was elected unopposed as the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) decided not to contest. However, several opposition MLAs, including Nana Patole, met CM Devendra Fadnavis and demanded that one of the members of the opposition alliance be given the post of Deputy Speaker, as per protocol.
After Eknath Shinde broke away from Shiv Sena and became CM in 2022, Rahul Narvekar was made Speaker. He was the Speaker in the 14th Legislative Assembly for two and a half years. The Shiv Sena Thackeray faction then accused him of delaying the decision to disqualify the MLAs.
Opposition leaders still doubt, no opposition party has 10% seats
Voting was held on 288 assembly seats of Maharashtra on November 20. The result came on November 23. Mahayuti got 230 seats. In which BJP won 132 MLAs, Shiv Sena 57 and NCP 41 MLAs. While Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) got 46 seats and others got 12 seats. In MVA, Shiv Sena (UBT) won 20 seats, Congress 16 and Sharad Pawar's NCP 10 seats. The majority figure is 145.
A party needs to have 10% of the seats to claim the leadership of the opposition. 29 seats are required in the 288-seat Maharashtra assembly to claim this post. Currently, no opposition party has this number of seats. In such a situation, the assembly will not have the main opposition party and its leader.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
