New Delhi: The non-appointment of a Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha was questioned by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday, who called it "unconstitutional".
"For the last 4 years, there has been no Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha. This is unconstitutional. What a far cry from March 1956 when Nehru proposed the name of Sardar Hukam Singh an Opposition Akali Dal MP & a critic of Nehru for the post & he was unanimously elected", he said in a tweet.
In the Lok Sabha, there has been a precedent of appointing an opposition MP as Deputy Speaker but in the current house, the post has been vacant since its constitution.
In the first Narendra Modi government, AIADMK's M. Thambidurai was the Deputy Speaker while in the UPA regime, the post was held by Akali Dal's Charanjit Singh Atwal and then BJP's Kariya Munda.
With inputs from IANS