Lok Sabha Speaker election provides an early look into workings of government and Opposition

Political drama surrounding Speaker election in 18th Lok Sabha reveals BJP's determination for majority despite coalition politics shift.

The political drama that surrounded the election of the Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha has many indications of how both the government and the Opposition view the mandate of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

For the BJP and specifically Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the repeat nomination of Om Birla for the post of the Speaker and the government being non-committal on the issue of ceding the Deputy Speaker’s post to the Opposition are part of a series of moves made to signal that Mr. Modi is determined to be at 240 Lok Sabha seats what he had been with 303 seats in 2019.

Continuity in selection of Ministers, a refusal to cut deals with the Opposition, and the endorsement of the statement by Mr. Birla on the Emergency, with its attendant references to the subversion of the Constitution by the then Indira Gandhi-led Congress government, incontrovertibly signalled this attitude.

The emphasis on marking the 49th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency is a direct fallout of the election results and the feedback that the BJP has received on how much the narrative that the BJP wanted a brute majority of “400-plus seats” to make radical changes to the Constitution, especially the provisions dealing with reservation, cost the party.

Also Read | Lok Sabha Speaker’s resolution on Emergency triggers Opposition protests

For the Opposition, exuberant over its performance in Uttar Pradesh, this entire episode has also been a learning process.

While the INDIA bloc came together on the issue of contesting for the Speaker’s post, there were differences on the issue of pressing for the division of votes on the floor of the House on Wednesday after Mr. Birla was elected by voice vote.