Speaking Out Of Turn

How the increasingly partisan role of the speaker compromises democracy / Politics

- Alok Prasanna Kumar

The Karnataka assembly election that took place this May was replete with high drama and plot twists. Following a hung assembly in which the Bharatiya Janata Party was the single largest party, but the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) made it past the halfway mark in a post-election alliance, Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala was faced with a tough choice regarding whom to invite to form a government. Although the BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa was first sworn in as chief minister, the Supreme Court mandated a floor test for the party to prove its majority in the house through a vote of confidence within 48 hours. With one day left to go for the test, Vala stoked controversy by appointing a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member and former BJP minister KG Bopaiah to the post of pro-tem speaker of the Karnataka Assembly. Under normal circumstances, the pro-tem speaker—usually the MLA who has had the longest term, which Bopaiah did not—does nothing more than swear in newly-elected members of the house and help them elect a speaker. However, the floor test has far greater consequences, and is usually conducted under the supervision of the speaker. In this instance, however, the Supreme Court had directed the pro-tem speaker to take on this function, and thus, his role became crucial. The controversy was prompted by the fact that when Bopaiah was the speaker in 2010, he had used his position to try and help Yeddyurappa sail through a no-confidence motion in very controversial circumstances. His partisanship had then drawn ire from the Supreme Court, which stated that the speaker had violated “the concept of a fair hearing.”