Eight-Term MLA Satish Mahana Is UP Assembly’s New Speaker

Lucknow: Eight-term MLA of the ruling BJP, Satish Mahana was on Tuesday elected unopposed as the Speaker of the 18th legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh.

Acting Speaker Ramapati Shastri announced the unopposed election of Mahana, with his being the only nomination for the post.

Governor Anandiben Patel had fixed March 29 as the date for the election of the Speaker.

Leader of the House and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Leader of Opposition Akhilesh Yadav and leaders of all the other parties congratulated Mahana.

His nomination was proposed by Mr Adityanath and supported by senior minister Suresh Khanna.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav had also proposed Mahana’s name and his party’s Awadhesh Prasad had supported it.

Besides, leaders of other political parties, including Raghuraj Pratap Singh of the Jansatta Dal Loktantrik and Aradhana Mishra of the Congress, too, had proposed his nomination.

Mr Mahana has been elected for the eighth time from the Maharajpur assembly seat of Kanpur district.

Born on October 14, 1960, in Kanpur, he was elected a member of the legislative assembly for the first time in 1991 and has continued to maintain his presence in the House since then.

Apart from being the Minister of State for Urban Development in the Mayawati-led government of the BSP-BJP alliance, he has also been a minister in the governments led by Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh.

He was the industrial development minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the previous assembly.

In the seven phased elections to the Uttar Pradesh assembly, the BJP won 255 seats and its allies Apna Dal secured 12 and the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) six seats.

The main opposition SP won 111 seats, and its allies Rashtriya Lok Dal eight and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party got six seats.

The Congress and the Jansatta Dal Loktantrik got two seats each, while the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party secured one seat.