AAP's Ram Niwas Goel elected speaker of Delhi assembly - Livemint

Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel. Photo: Twitter

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Ram Niwas Goel was on Monday unanimously elected speaker of the Delhi assembly on the first day of the two-day session of the House.

Another ruling party legislator, Bandana Kumari, was elected deputy speaker of the 70-member House, where the main and only opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has a negligible presence with just three legislators.

Goel, 67, was elected from Shahdara constituency in north Delhi where he defeated the BJP’s Jitender Singh Shunty by a margin of over 11,000 votes in the recently concluded assembly election.

An FIR (first information report) was registered against Goel on 7 February following a complaint by a realtor who accused him and a number of his supporters of raiding houses in the area. Kumar, 41, who was elected deputy speaker, is president of the women’s wing of the AAP.

The first session of the new Delhi assembly began on Monday with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and other MLAs taking oath.

Kejriwal, 46, was the first to take oath, followed by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and other ministers. Pro-tem speaker Fateh Singh administered the oath of office and secrecy to the MLAs.

It was not clear whether the AAP government will offer the post of the leader of Opposition to the BJP. As per rules, the main opposition party should have at least 10 legislators to get the post.