Congress questions absence of Deputy LS Speaker for past 4 yrs

New Delhi, March 5 Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday questioned the non-appointment of a Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha, terming it "unconstitutional".

"For the last 4 years there has been no Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha. This is unconstitutional. What a far cry from March 1956 when Nehru proposed the name of Sardar Hukam Singh an Opposition Akali Dal MP & a critic of Nehru for the post & he was unanimously elected", he said in a tweet.

In the Lok Sabha, there has been a precedent of appointing a opposition MP as Deputy Speaker but in the current house, the post has been vacant since its constitution.

In the first Narendra Modi government, AIADMK's M. Thambidurai was the Deputy Speaker while in the UPA regime, the post was held Akali Dal's Charanjit Singh Atwal and then BJP's Kariya Munda.

miz/vd