Who is K Suresh, the opposition's candidate for the Lok Sabha Speaker post?

In a historic first, the Lok Sabha will witness an election for the Speaker’s post. While the ruling NDA has picked Om Birla again, the INDIA bloc has fielded Congress MP Kondikunnil Suresh as their candidate for the coveted post.

The eight-time MP had recently been in the spotlight for the role of Pro-tem Speaker, given his status as the senior-most parliamentarian of the 18th Lok Sabha.

However, tensions soared and the atmosphere in the Lok Sabha turned “vicious” when the BJP opted for seven-term Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab over Suresh, sources in the opposition camp told The Indian Express.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju explaining the reason behind Mahtab’s selection said, it was in accordance with the Westminster system, emphasising his consecutive tenures, unlike Suresh’s terms, which included breaks in 1998 and 2004.
Now, Congress MP K Suresh has filed his nomination papers on Tuesday and is set to challenge BJP’s Kota MP Om Birla on June 26.

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But who exactly is K Suresh, and what has his journey been like? Let’s delve deeper.

Background 

Hailing from Kerala’s Kodikunnil in Thiruvananthapuram district, K Suresh got his pre-degree from Mar Ivanios College in the city. Further, he graduated from the Government Law College in Thiruvanathapuram and obtained a degree in LL.B.

Suresh began his political journey in 1989 after he was elected as an MP from Kerala’s Adoor constituency and subsequently won in the 1991,1996 and 1999 general elections.

Rise in Congress

After winning from the Adoor constituency four straight times, Suresh in this election contested for the eighth time in his 29-year-old political career.

He defeated CPI’s young turk C A Arun Kumar from Mavelikara Lok Sabha constituency by a margin of 10,000 votes, among the lowest margins in the state, in a constituency where the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) contests on all the seven Assembly segments.

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So far, Suresh has only lost twice in general elections. One in 1998 and another in 2004.

However, his prominence in the party has only risen. In 2009, the Kerala MP served as Union Minister for State for Labour and Employment in the second UPA government led by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Once considered a frontrunner for the Kerala Congress chief position in 2021, Suresh now holds significant influence as a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s top decision-making body. Additionally, Suresh has served as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary.

Since 2018, the veteran parliamentarian has been serving as the president of the Congress’s Kerala unit, cementing his pivotal role within the party’s leadership.

But it’s not all merry, Suresh’s extensive political journey has had a fair share of controversies too.

The controversies

In 2010, the Kerala High Court disqualified Suresh, who is also a prominent Dalit leader, over his caste status.
The court was acting upon a plea filed by his opponent R S Anil of the CPI who contended that Suresh belonged to the OBC Cheramar Christian community and not the Cheramar Hindu community that is categorised as a Scheduled Caste and thus was ineligible to contest from the SC-reserved Mavelikkara seat.

Suresh alleged that the case was a “political conspiracy” by some rivals in his party and the opposition. “I have fought seven elections and won five times. There were no cases filed in court,” he said in The Indian Express report_._

He then moved to the Supreme Court, which overturned the High Court’s order and confirmed his eligibility to contest.

Not only this, the Kerala MP, who declared assets worth Rs 1.5 crore in the Lok Sabha polls, has had several run-ins with the law.

He has been booked in six criminal cases that include charges of rioting, unlawful assembly, and obstructing a public servant from discharging duty, which is a non-bailable offence. He was booked alongside prominent Congress leaders, including Shashi Tharoor, in connection with the violence during the police headquarters march last year.

With input from agencies