Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc nominates K Suresh for Lok Sabha Speaker post

Eight-time Congress MP K Suresh has been nominated by INDIA bloc for the post of the Speaker in the 18th Lok Sabha. He has filed the nomination on Tuesday.

He will be contesting against NDA’s Om Birla for the post of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

The Lok Sabha Speaker election will be held on Wednesday, June 26.

Suresh is the MP from Kerala’s Mavelikkara. He defeated CA Arun Kumar of the CPI in the 2024 Lok Sahba elections. He had served as a junior minister in the 2nd Manmohan Singh Ministry.

The Congress and the Opposition had also pitched Suresh for the post of the Pro-tem Speaker. Previously, his election was also shrouded in controversies as his candidature was challenged and the matter was dragged to the courts.

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Who is K Suresh, Opposition’s speaker pick?

Suresh is an eight-time MP of the Congress party.

Suresh defeated CPI’s Arun Kumar this time by 3,58,648 votes.

Suresh has represented his current seat of Mavelikkara four times and he represented the erstwhile Adoor seat four times.

There have been questions over his caste. In 2010, the Kerala High Court had disqualified him from contesting elections, as per The Indian Express.

The HC had made the ruling on a petition his opponent RS Anil from the CPI had filed. He had stated that Suresh was from the Cheramar Christian community that’s an other backward classes (OBC) community and not the Cheramar Hindu community that’s a scheduled caste (SC). Suresh’s seat of Mavelikkara is an SC-reserved seat. This meant that a non-SC cannot contest the seat.

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Suresh appeared the HC’s ruling in the Supreme Court which set aside the verdict.

The paper further reported that Suresh also has criminal cases of rioting, unlawful assembly, and preventing a public servant from discharging duty against him.

Why was Suresh not appointed as Pro-tem Speaker?

While the Opposition had argued that Suresh should have been the Pro-tem Speaker as he is an eight-term MP, the government made seven-time MP Bhartuhari Mahtab as the pro-tem Speaker.

Even as the Opposition alleged that the government violated the parliamentary norms and hinted that Suresh was not appointed as was a Dalit, the government said that the Westminster system says the MP with most consecutive terms should be the Speaker pro-tem. As per this rationale, the government said Mahtab was the most senior.

While Suresh has served the maximum of eight terms, he has only served four consecutive terms as he had a break between 1998 and 2004. On the other hand, Mahtab has served seven consecutive terms.