BJP's Nand Kishore Yadav Elected Unopposed as Bihar Assembly Speaker

Veteran BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav was on Thursday elected unopposed as the Speaker of the Bihar Legislative Assembly. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav escorted the new speaker to the Chair.

Kumar congratulated Nand Kishore Yadav and said he was an experienced leader. “You (Speaker) are an experienced leader. I congratulate you on your election. You have been supported by all MLAs. I am sure you will hear both sides, ruling as well as opposition”.

The Leader of the Opposition expressed hope that the new speaker will listen to the opposition also. “You are a very senior leader and I am sure that you will remain impartial and listen to the opposition also”, Tejashwi Yadav said.

Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha congratulated Yadav on being elected as the speaker of the state Assembly. “You are our senior leader and you come from the land of Guru Govind Singh Ji. We all are thankful to our central leadership for this,” Choudhary said.

“We congratulate you for this new role. You are a very senior leader… and we will learn from your experiences,” Sinha said. Yadav, a seven-time MLA from Patna Sahib assembly constituency had filed his nomination for the Speaker’s post on Tuesday, a day after his predecessor, Awadh Bihari Choudhary of the RJD, was voted out in a no-confidence motion.

After Choudhary’s removal from the Speaker’s chair, Deputy Speaker Maheshwar Hazari of JD (U), was conducting the proceedings of the House. Patna Sahib, the constituency represented for several consecutive terms by Yadav, is named after the Sikh shrine situated at the spot where the 10th Guru was born.

Yadav started his political journey in 1978 when he became the councillor of the Patna Municipal Corporation and deputy mayor of Patna in 1982. First elected as an MLA in 1995, Yadav, had also served as a minister in the Nitish Kumar government several times in the past. BJP’s selection of Yadav for the post of Speaker is being seen as an attempt to strike a balance between Extremely Backward Class (EBC), Other Backward Class (OBC) and upper caste balance in the new ruling dispensation.