The Congress government in Uttarakhand faces its first test of strength if and when the election for the Assembly Speaker is held on Monday as BJP plans to put up a candidate for the post.
The Congress government in Uttarakhand faces its first test of strength if and when the election for the Assembly Speaker is held on Monday as BJP plans to put up a candidate for the post.
The nomination papers of the post of Speaker would be filed tomorrow with both Bahuguna and his in-house critic union minister Harish Rawat expected to remain present there at the time.
BJP is contemplating to field its candidate for the post of the Speaker. "We have not taken a decision but we are thinking of putting up a candidate," said former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari.
To sail through in a possible contest for Speakership, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna is banking on the support of 7 non-BJP MLAs and hopes all the remaining 11 Congress MLAs, who are loyal to Harish Rawat, take oath before the Speaker is chosen or elected, as the case may be.
Rawat had raised a banner of revolt against the Congress high command's decision to appoint Bahuguna as Chief Minister.
Congress has 32 seats on its own in the 70-member assembly against 31 of opposition BJP.
The oath-taking of the 11 Congress MLAs assumes importance as Bahuguna's facing the confidence vote later would be rendered infructuous if Congress loses the Speaker's election.
Protem Speaker Shailendra Mohan Singhal said he would sit in his chamber to administer oath to the MLAs tomorrow when the nomination for the post of the Speaker would be held.
Bahuguna said today that he would first prove his majority in the house before distributing portfolios among the cabinet ministers but later made Indira Hridayesh as new Parliamentary Affairs and Law Minister.
However, the remaining portfolios would be declared later, officials here said.
"My first priority is to win the trust vote. The portfolios will come later. The list is in my pocket.
"Once I win the trust vote, I will declare the list [of portfolios]," Bahuguna told reporters after reaching here from New Delhi where he had held talks with senior Congress leaders to resolve various issues confronting his government.
But since the assembly session has been convened from March 27, Bahuguna gave the portfolio of Parliamentary Affairs and Law to Hridayesh, an MLA from Haldwani.
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