Samajwadi Party has fielded its legislator against one of its MLA Nitin Agarwal who is backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the elections for deputy speaker of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
The Uttar Pradesh government has called a special one-day assembly session on Monday to hold the elections for the deputy speaker's post, which has remained vacant for several years.
Interestingly, the BJP has extended its support to Samajwadi Party MLA Nitin Agarwal for the elections of deputy speaker. On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav's SP pitted legislator Narendra Verma against Agarwal.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Assembly, Ram Govind Chaudhary, has said that it has always been a tradition that the deputy speaker belongs to the Opposition but the BJP is not following this tradition and tactfully "fielding" Nitin Agarwal as its candidate.
Senior BJP leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said that the party has extended its support to Nitin Agarwal.
"Nitin Agarwal is an MLA of the Samajwadi Party. But SP has declared its candidate against him. In this situation, an election will take place. But the BJP will support Nitin Agarwal," he said.
Congress party leader Deepak Singh accused the BJP of being partial saying that if the post of deputy speaker in the Legislative Assembly is being created, then why the nomination process for the deputy chairman in the state legislative council has not started.
"BJP is doing politics of discrimination here. BJP does not have a majority in the Legislative Council, so they are carrying out such moves," he said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has maintained a distance on this subject due to fewer numbers in the state Assembly.
Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are scheduled to take place early next year. In the 2017 Assembly polls, the BJP won 325 seats out of a total of 403 Assembly seats. Samajwadi Party won 47 seats, BSP emerged victorious on 19 seats while Congress bagged 7 seats.
( With inputs from ANI )
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