Karthikeyan to be Speaker in Kerala Assembly

This was announced by Kerala PCC president Ramesh Chennithala here in the presence of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, UDF convener P P Thankachan, IUML leader P K Kunhalikutty and Kerala Congress (M) leader K M Mani.

An MLA for the sixth time, Karthikeyan used to be identified with a corrective group in the Congress during the late K Karunakaran’s tenure as chief minister in the early nineties.

He was later identified with the faction led by Ramesh Chennithala though off late he has been keeping away from group politics. Karthikeyan was deputy leader of the Congress in the outgoing Assembly.

Meanwhile, the UDF has yet again failed to thrash out an agreement regarding the posts of Deputy Speaker and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs. Both the IUML and Kerala Congress(M) have been demanding the minister’s post though the UDF is not keen on increasing the ministry’s size to 21.

The KC(M) has been wary of accepting the deputy speaker’s post. Chandy said the decision regarding these two posts would be taken before June 22.

Meanwhile, the first meeting of the Assembly would be held on June 1 when the new members would take their oath before pro-tem speaker N Sakthan. After the swearing-in of the members, the pro-tem speaker would hold the election to the speaker’s post.