Ram Niwas Goel unanimously elected speaker of Delhi Assembly,

Aam Aadmi Party MLA Ram Niwas Goel was unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Delhi Legislative Assembly for the second consecutive time on Monday.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia moved a proposal nominating the name of Goel for the post of Speaker.

The proposal was supported by MLAs Kuldeep Kumar, Satendra Jain, Praveen Kumar, Dinesh Mohania, S K Bagga, Vishesh Ravi and Raghav Chaddha after which the motion was passed.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it is a good thing that Goel was unanimously elected by both ruling and opposition members of the House. Goel is an MLA from Shahdara.

"In the last five years, we saw that Ram Niwas Goel ji was like 'Bhishma Pitamah' of the House of the Assembly," Kejriwal said.

 

Sisodia also congratulated Goel on behalf of all the legislators on being elected unopposed. He said under Goel's guidance, a new story of development will be written in Delhi.

"Under your leadership, the Delhi government will work towards developing all the Delhi constituencies on a faster pace," Sisodia said.

After being elected as the Speaker, Goel said with BJP MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri being appointed the Leader of Opposition in the 70-member House, he hoped that the opposition would play a good role.

Goel said he would give sufficient time to opposition members for constructive debate over public issues, but they should not lead to ruckus in the House.

Earlier in the day, Bidhuri was unanimously appointed by the party as the Leader of Opposition in the 7th Delhi Assembly.

Bidhuri's name was announced at the Delhi BJP office by Saroj Pandey, party's national general secretary and central observer, in presence of Delhi unit president Manoj Tiwari.

The seventh Delhi Legislative Assembly was constituted after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 62 seats in the 70-member House. The BJP won eight seats, while the Congress drew a blank.

The proceedings of the three-day special session of the Delhi Assembly began on Monday.