Shahzad Poonawala said, 'Rahul Gandhi is saying that it is a tradition that the Deputy Chairman should be from the opposition and this was the first condition to support the Speaker. Such a condition is shameful.' He raised the question whether his own family followed the tradition he is talking about? Poonawala gave an example and said that when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister, M. Ananthasayanam Iyengar (1952-1956), Hukum Singh (1956-1962) and SV Krishnamurthy Rao (1962-67) were Deputy Chairman. All of them were from Congress, while the Speaker was also from the same party. During Indira Gandhi's tenure also, RK Khadilkar of Congress was Deputy Chairman from 1967-1969.
The BJP leader also shared details of states held by the Congress and its allies, where both the posts were held by the same party. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress' Biman Banerjee is the speaker and his party colleague Ashish Banerjee is his deputy. In Tamil Nadu, DMK's M. Appavu is the speaker and K. Pichandi is the deputy speaker. In Karnataka, Congress' UT Khader Fareed is the speaker and RM Lamani is the deputy speaker.
Shahzad Poonawala also mentioned Kerala. He said that in Kerala, LDF's AN Shamseer (CPI-M) is the speaker and Chittayam Gopakumar is the deputy speaker. The post of deputy speaker is vacant in Telangana and Jharkhand. There is a Congress government in Telangana, while its ally JMM is in power in Jharkhand. Shahzad Poonawala said that just like the Congress was lying on the issue of Protem Speaker, it is lying here as well.
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