Now as the Presidential Election 2017 is nearing the capital, the city is brimming with passion and politics. The opposition has declared Meira Kumar as its candidate, nominating her against the NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind, and the drama is full on for the July 17 elections. It is to be noted that while Kovind had been serving as the Governor of Bihar when his candidacy was announced, Meira Kumar has served as the first female Speaker of the lower house (Lok Sabha) in the parliament from 2009 – 2014, with experience of serving as an Indian diplomat as well. Both the candidates are Dalit, and seem to be clever choices from the opposing parties for the position of the President, seeming to appease the vote banks.
Now, events took a different turn earlier today when Sushma Swaraj, a veteran politician and the Minister of External Affairs, India took a dig today at the UPA candidate Meira Kumar with the following tweet –
This is how Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar treated the Leader of Opposition – https://t.co/hxHWHaJ4D9
— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 25, 2017
The video in the tweet comes from a time when Ms. Swaraj was the leader of opposition in the house which Ms. Kumar was the Speaker of. This 6-minute video is in fact an exchange in Lok Sabha with Ms Swaraj accusing then UPA government led by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of corruption.
It can be seen that nearly after four minutes for Ms. Sarah’s statement, the Speaker interrupts her saying words like “All Right”, “Thank You”, “Okay”, “I have to proceed”, which are indications for the Leader of Opposition, Ms. Swaraj, to conclude.
Ms. Swaraj also tweeted a link of a news report from the established daily Pioneer, which read she was interrupted by the Speaker for “at least 60 times during the next 120 seconds of Swaraj’s speech”.
Now this is to be noted that a section of the opposition wanted Ms Swaraj to be the government’s candidate for Presidential elections keenly, but the minister herself had rubbished the idea.
The fight seems to get dirty now as the days pass. However, NDA seems to be in for a clean sweep at the elections as it has more than 60% of the votes after the Nitish Kumar led JD-U backing Kovind and leaving the opposition mid way. It is to be noted that Presidential elections in India follow the electoral college, where the MPs and MLAs elect the President.
