A N Shamseer elected as 24th speaker of Kerala assembly

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The assembly elected A N Shamseer as the new speaker in the wake of former speaker M B Rajesh relinquishing the post for being inducted into the LDF cabinet.
A second time MLA from Thalassery, Shamseer is the 24th speaker of the state assembly. He was declared elected as speaker after 96 votes were polled in his favour against 40 votes for Anwar Sadath of the Congress. Four members, including deputy speaker Chittayam Gopakumar, who conducted the speaker's election, water resources minister Roshy Augustine, IUML MLA U A Latheef and CPM independent MLA K V Daleema did not cast their votes.
Congratulating the new speaker, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressed hope that Shamseer would take forward the rich legacy of the assembly.
He said that the age of 31 members of the assembly is between 27 and 48 years, and a young speaker would mean that he would be able to infuse more energy to the activities of the assembly. He said that Shamseer knows the value of secularism as his family has been a victim of the riots in Thalassery.
Congratulating Shamseer, opposition leader V D Satheesan said that it is in Kerala that the assembly is convened the most and expressed optimism that Shamseer would ensure that such kinds of achievements of the assembly would be held high in the future too.
In his maiden speech as speaker, Shamseer said that he expects his role as the speaker to be much relaxed as the assembly has a ruling front which takes the criticism by the opposition into confidence and an opposition that tries to cooperate with the government in discharging its role even while dissociating with the government in many of its policies.
He assured his support to the government that is working for the people's welfare and the opposition that is constantly remaining vigilant to make sure that the government is moving in the right direction.
With the induction of Rajesh as the local self-government and excise minister and M V Govindan relinquishing the post of minister as he has been elected as the CPM state secretary, the seating arrangement in the assembly has also been modified.
The second chair after that of the chief minister which is allotted to the second senior-most member of the cabinet, has been allocated to minister for SC, ST and devaswoms K Radhakrishnan, who is the senior-most after the chief minister now. While Govindan, who would continue as MLA, would now be seated in the second row, Rajesh has been allotted chair in the first row itself.