What happened to NDA govt when TDP last had Speaker’s post

Equalling the record of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be stepping into the shoes of his party’s stalwart from yesteryears, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in leading a coalition government after his outfit fell short of a majority in the lower house.

In a striking similarity, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu is reportedly placing similar demands to PM Modi as he did to Vajpayee — the post of the Lok Sabha Speaker among others.

Vajpayee had accepted Naidu’s demand — that saw India have a Scheduled Caste (Dalit) person, Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi, in the Speaker’s office for the first time. Meira Kumar later became the first woman SC to hold the office of Lok Sabha Speaker.

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The TDP was supporting the Vajpayee government from outside in 1998-99.

What happened to the Vajpayee government?

The 1998 Lok Sabha election came in the middle of a 30-year-phase (1984-2014) in India when voters did not give a clear majority to any party in parliamentary polls. The BJP got 181 seats in the 543-member House. The Congress got 141 seats.

Interestingly, the offer to form the government to Vajpayee, chosen as the leader of the party by the newly elected MPs, came from President KR Narayanan only after Congress president Sonia Gandhi met him to inform that her party wouldn’t stake claim to form the government, citing “we have no numbers” as the reason.

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In March 1998, Vajpayee took oath as the prime minister, heading a coalition government amid multiple pulls and pushes. A year later, AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa pulled out her ministers from the Vajpayee government, primarily over the compulsions of Tamil Nadu state politics as she fought with the DMK government there headed by M Karunanidhi.

It was April 15, 1999, when Vajpayee moved the trust motion in the Lok Sabha. A day before, he had secured verbal assurances from some of the non-NDA leaders including Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati.

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It was the first time that a government in India lost the trust vote in the House of People. There were 270 ‘Nos’ and 269 ‘Ayes’.

The provision that Lok Sabha Speaker — GMC Balayogi in this case — would vote in case of a tie did not come into the reckoning.

Three MPs were euphoric to claim credit for the fall of the Vajpayee government — Mayawati, Saifuddin Soz and Girdhar Gamang. They had voted against the trust vote.

Mayawati, in an apparent about-turn, decided to vote against the government led by a “Manuvadi” party during the trust. Soz, a Jammu and Kashmir National Conference of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, was expelled from the party, which was part of the government.

Soon after the defeat, when Union Home Minister LK Advani was asked what went wrong, he said the voting was on expected lines but what happened was that Mayawati and Soz voted against the government.

Gamang was, however, the most-talked about surprise. He had been sworn in as the Odisha chief minister a few weeks ago. But he had not yet resigned as the Member of Parliament. When he reached the Parliament House for voting, the ruling alliance member created an uproar. Eyes were on Balyogi, who played by the book. The Vajpayee government lost power.

If there had been a tie, Speaker Balayogi would have exercised his casting vote, Advani had said.

Who will be Speaker in the 18th Lok Sabha?

The final decision will be known when the Lok Sabha sits for its first sitting in days to come. A senior member would be chosen as the Pro-tem Speaker to preside over the election of the Speaker. Speculation is rife that Naidu wants the post again.

Some names have also started circulating in social media and news reports. One the names doing rounds in the TDP circle is of GM Harish Madhur, who is the son of GMC Balayogi and is a first-time MP from Amalapuram constituency in Andhra Pradesh’s Konaseema district.