Mumbai: Congress MLA Nana Patole was elected unopposed as the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly after BJP withdrew its candidate for the post on Sunday, a day after Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray led Maharasthra Vikas Aghadi won the vote of confidence in the Legislative Assembly.
State BJP chief Chandrakant Patil announced the party’s decision to take back the nomination of Kisan Kathore for the Assembly Speaker post after an all-party meeting here this morning and before the end of the deadline of withdrawal of nomination ended at 10 am.
Barely an hour after the announcement, pro tem Speaker formally announced Patole’s election as the Speaker in the House.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis welcomed the new Speaker and escorted him to the Speaker’s chair to take charge.
Speaking soon the Speaker took charge, the Chief Minister spoke and said: “Nana Patole has also come from a farmer family and I know your behavior very well. You will be very confident and believes injustice, and I am sure you will give justice to everyone,” he said.
To this, several BJP members interrupted and asked him to address Patole as “Adhyaksh Mahoday” (Mr Speaker)’
To this Uddhav responded: “Since our relationship is different so it’s new to me.”
Fadnavis while speaking in the assembly said that the Speaker should have been made a part of the state Cabinet with agriculture portfolio as he belongs to a farmer family.
“Actually, we feel that you should have been in the cabinet and must have taken agriculture ministry and would have worked for the welfare of farmers as you belong to farmers background and you have led many issues of farmers,” the BJP leader said.
He said, “We had filed Kisan Khatore (for the Speaker post) but in all-party meeting they requested us (to bank the nomination). It has been a tradition that the post of the Speaker is appointed unopposed so we accepted the request and withdrew the name of our candidate.”