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Thursday, Jun 03, 2004

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14th Lok Sabha meets

By Our Special Correspondent

PTI

UMPIRE IN PLACE: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam swears in Somnath Chatterjee as pro tem Speaker on Wednesday. This signals start of play in the 14th Lok Sabha.

NEW DELHI, JUNE 2. The 14th Lok Sabha met for the first time today and as many as 376 members took the oath under the supervision of the pro tem Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, who had been sworn in by the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, at Rashtrapati Bhavan before the House met.

Beginning with the National Anthem, a minute's silence to mark the solemnity of the occasion and a call by Mr. Chatterjee to strengthen parliamentary democracy, the House got down to business without much ado.

After the panel of pro tem Speakers — Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil, Giridhar Gamang and Manvendra Shah — took the oath, Mr. Chatterjee announced the roll call by which members would make the affirmation.

The first to take the oath was the Leader of the House, Pranab Mukherjee, followed by the Leader of the Opposition, L. K. Advani, the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Sonia Gandhi. Thereafter, it was the turn of the Council of Ministers who had been elected to the House, after which members were called to the well of the House as per the alphabetical order of the States.

The exercise will continue on Thursday.

As soon as he arrived, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, went up to Mr. Vajpayee and greeted him and Mr. Advani before moving towards Ms. Gandhi who rose to greet him.

The Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, caused a bit of a stir in the Congress benches when he touched the feet of Mr. Vajpayee after taking the oath.

The linguistic diversity of the House was in full flow with many a member - including several from the Council of Ministers — opting to take the oath in their respective languages.

Prominent among the Ministers who took the oath in Tamil were P. Chidambaram, Mr. Aiyar, Dayanidhi Maran and T.R. Baalu.

While Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi took the oath in Bengali, K. Chandrasekhar Rao made his affirmation in Telugu, Shibu Soren in Santhali and E. Ahamad in Malayalam.

The Budget and the Monsoon sessions of Parliament are likely to be clubbed, though no dates have been fixed. According to the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, the exact schedule for the presentation of the Union Budget, recess to enable the Standing Committees to examine the budget proposals and discussion and voting on the Finance Bill will be decided in consultation with the yet-to-be-elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

Interacting with newspersons after the inaugural session of the 14th Lok Sabha, Mr. Azad said that the process of setting up the Standing Committees for the various Ministries would commence after the new Speaker assumed office.

The Minister appeared confident over the unanimous election of Mr. Chatterjee as the Lok Sabha Speaker. Mr. Chatterjee's candidature was likely to be proposed by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition. The situation would become clear before noon tomorrow, the deadline for filing of nomination papers. Plans are under way to file several sets of nomination papers with all major parties proposing and seconding his name; significantly, the first set of papers for Mr. Chatterjee were from the Samajwadi Party.

Deputy Speaker's post

Mr. Azad said that the election of the Deputy Speaker would take place separately. He dismissed reports that the Congress was ready to offer the post of Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha to the Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Mayawati. "There is no vacancy there; when the vacancy arises we will see what is to be done." He had recently called on Ms. Mayawati to support Mr. Chatterjee for the Speaker's post. Nothing else was discussed, he stated emphatically.

Apparently, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies have not yet finalised their candidate for the Deputy Speaker's post, a position already offered by the Congress and its allies to the National Democratic Alliance. A senior BJP leader told The Hindu that Satya Narayan Jatiya, MP from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and Charanjit Singh Atwal, Akali Dal MP from Phillaur in Punjab, were being considered for the post.

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