CPM's MB Rajesh elected Speaker of Kerala Assembly

Thiruvananthapuram The 50-year-old CPI-M leader MB Rajesh on Tuesday wrote himself into record books by becoming the first Legislator to be elected as the Speaker of the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly in his debut assembly election.

Two other legislators who achieved this feat became Speaker later in their tenure of their first term. The victory of Rajesh was a foregone conclusion as the ruling CPI-M led Left has a strength of 99 legislators in the 140-member Assembly.

Three time Congress legislator PC Vishnunath was fielded by the Congress led Opposition which has a strength of 41 members.

The legislators present on the second day of the first session cast their votes when voting began at 9 a.m. After the votes were counted, Rajesh got 96 votes and Vishnunath secured 40. Later Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Leader of Opposition VD Satheesan and the pro-term speaker PTA Rahim led Rajesh to the speaker's chair.

Vijayan in his speech congratulated Rajesh and said, "he is a perfect fit to the Speaker's chair and his responsibility is to see the conduct of the proceedings of the house and am sure he will be able to do it in the best possible way by becoming the collective voice of the house". Satheesan said the experience of Rajesh of being a Lok Sabha MP for a decade will certainly be of help to him in the conduct of the house and pledged full support of the opposition.