Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Ronnie V. Lyngdoh today criticised the VPPs decision to abstain from the election of the Speaker in the Lok Sabha.
Questioning the “strange decision”, Lyngdoh said that people have given their mandate to the new party “but it looks like VPP doesn’t have the courage of conviction”.
“Either you are for or against. What you cannot be is neither there nor here. So you must have the courage of conviction,” Lyngdoh said.
“The Speaker is the authority in the House. So by rejecting to elect a Speaker, I think it’s up to the VPP to explain why they abstained because it doesn’t make any sense” he added.
“If there was any issue, certain issues, certain policies, certain programmes it is fine, but an election of a Speaker. So it’s very strange that VPP took this stand. So a lot of people are confused. But they have to take a stand even when it comes to any policy or any law. You have to take a stand that either you support or you don’t support, but in this case, it’s very strange,” Lyngdoh said.
It may be mentioned that VPP, which has one MP in the Lok Sabha, decided to abstain from the election of the Lok Sabha Speaker yesterday.
The VPP has not aligned with either the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or with the opposition Congress-led INDIA bloc in parliament. However, the party had said that it would extend issue-based support to INDIA.
It may be mentioned that Om Birla of the BJP was elected as Speaker of the 18th Lok Sabha during a voice vote yesterday.
Yesterday, VPP spokesman Batskhem Myrboh clarified that his party did not support Om Birla for the Speaker’s post Om Birla as reported by India Today TV.
He also said that the party would file a complaint with the Press Council of India against the news channel for the false news.
