Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday announced that elections for the post of deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha would be held on August 9, the second last day of the monsoon session of Parliament.
The post has been lying vacant since Congress leader PJ Kurien retired on July 1. At the farewell of Kurien, Naidu had urged the ruling and opposition parties to find a suitable replacement for the former.
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“I will certainly miss him as my deputy; he was doing most of the work. He is a multi-faceted personality, and always ensured the effective functioning of the house, which was the most important feature about him that attracted me the most. I hope in the coming days the ruling party and the Opposition will find a suitable replacement for PJ Kurien,” Naidu said.
Meanwhile the Janata Dal (United) leader Harivansh Narayan Singh is likely to be the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) candidate for the post of the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Congress senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said that ideally the Deputy Chairman should be from the opposition parties.
Speaking on the issue, Azad said, “We (the Opposition) would prefer to have a Deputy Chairman who is not from the ruling party or their allies. It will be in the fitness of things to have a Deputy Chairman from the Opposition.”
“The Congress party so far has not decided any candidate; the Opposition as such has not decided any candidate. But, we are very clear about it that it should be a consensus candidate,” Azad said.
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