Puducherry Assembly to convene on June 16 for Speaker election

PUDUCHERRY: More than 40 days after the election results were announced on May 2, the first session of the 15th Legislative Assembly has been convened on June 16 at 9.30 a.m for the election of the Speaker. 

The secretary of the Legislative Assembly R Munisamy, in a release on Saturday, said Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has fixed June 16 as the date for the first session of the 15th legislative assembly to meet to elect the Speaker. 

The nominations for the Speaker’s election will be accepted till 12.00 hours on June 15, Munisamy said.

There has been a long delay in the induction of the ministers and the election of the Speaker as the NDA partners -- the AINRC and BJP -- could not come to a consensus.

After hectic discussions, now issues seem to have been sorted out -- the Speaker and two ministers will be from the BJP and the other three ministers and Deputy Speaker will be from AINRC .

The BJP had already submitted the name of its Speaker candidate to Chief Minister N Rangasamy.

It is learnt that Embalam R Selvam of the BJP will be the NDA nominee for election as the Speaker. If the opposition does not field any candidate, he will be elected unopposed. The AINRC has 10 members, the BJP has nine with three Independent MLAs supporting the party. 

The opposition DMK has six MLAs, while the Congress has two. Besides, there are three other Independent members in the 33 member Assembly which has 30 elected and three nominated members.
 
It is also expected that the full-fledged ministry will be sworn in on the evening of the same day.