The parliamentary party of the majority party BNP has met to finalize the candidates for the posts of Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Deputy Leader of the House ahead of the first session of the 13th National Parliament. The meeting began at 11:30 am on Wednesday at the ruling party’s parliamentary room on the ninth floor of the National Parliament building.
The meeting is being chaired by Parliament Leader and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. Chief Whip Nurul Islam confirmed the matter.
The first session of the 13th National Parliament is scheduled to begin at 11 am on Thursday. The election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker will be held within the agenda of that session. President Md. Shahabuddin will deliver a speech in the same session.
On February 17, the day the members of parliament were sworn in, the opposition announced the names of their leader, deputy leader, and opposition chief whip. Although the ruling party elected the leader of parliament on the same day, the post of deputy leader of parliament is still vacant.
Several BNP MPs said that the names of potential candidates for the posts of Speaker and Deputy Speaker, along with the election of the deputy leader of the parliament, may be finalized at Wednesday’s meeting.
Although the ruling party has shown interest in nominating an opposition member for the post of Deputy Speaker, the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami has not yet responded to the proposal. It is reported that the meeting may also discuss what to do in that case.
Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Ehsanul Mahbub Zubair told the media that according to the ‘July National Charter’ passed in the referendum, the opposition party deserves the post of deputy speaker in both the upper and lower houses of parliament. He claimed that BNP has not yet made any written proposal in this regard; it has only verbally expressed its intention to give the deputy speaker to the opposition party.