On Speaker’s request, Congress MLA steps in to preside over the proceedings of Gujarat Assembly

IN AN uncommon improvement, senior Congress MLA from Bhiloda constituency Anil Joshiyara presided over the proceedings of Gujarat Assembly for round two hours on Friday. Although Joshiyara is likely one of the 5 members on the Panel of Speakers of House to preside over the proceedings within the absence of the Speaker Rajendra Trivedi, the event stunned many.A senior official of the Gujarat Assembly stated there are 5 members on the Panel of the Speaker – BJP MLAs Neemaben Acharya, Purnesh Modi and Dushyant Patel and Congress MLAs Anil Joshiyara and Rajendrasinh Parmar.
“Whenever the Speaker wants to retire from the chair for some time, he/she can ask anybody from the Panel to preside over the proceedings. Today, he asked Joshiyara for the same. It is the Speaker’s prerogative,” the official stated.When Joshiyara got here and sat on the Speaker’s Chair, lots of the members current within the House thumped the desk to welcome him.

When requested, Chief Whip of ruling BJP Pankaj Desai stated that two of their members on the Panel of Speaker, Modi and Patel, weren’t current owing to well being causes regarding their spouse and son respectively. Whereas Acharya, Desai added, can’t seat for very long time attributable to medical causes.
Joshiyara stated, “Since 1997, probably this was for the first time that a Congress MLA was asked to preside over the House proceedings. I myself was surprised when was asked to do the same by the Speaker.”
Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani stated, “I was in my chamber and was surprised when I saw Joshiyara on the seat of the Speaker from the television set. I could not believe it and clicked a grab from the television. I became an MLA for the first time in 2002. Since then, I have never seen a Congress member on the Speaker’s chair.”
“The healthy practice of having Speaker from the ruling party and Deputy Speaker from the opposition party is not being practiced in Gujarat under BJP rule for years now. And therefore, I was surprised to see Joshiyara in the Speaker’s chair. But I felt good about it,” Dhanani added.