Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Friday appointed All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Akbarudin Owaisi as protem Speaker of newly-elected Assembly.
He will be sworn in as the protem Speaker on Saturday morning at Raj Bhavan before the beginning of the Assembly session at 11 a.m. and will administer oath to the newly-elected MLAs.
According to a notification issued by the Governor, Owaisi will perform the duties of the Speaker till a Speaker is elected under Article 178 of the Constitution.
Being the senior most member of the Assembly, the AIMIM legislator has been appointed as the protem Speaker.
In the just-concluded Assembly elections, Akbaruddin Owaisi was elected from Chandrayangutta constituency in Hyderabad for a sixth consecutive term. This is the second time that a MLA of AIMIM has been appointed as Protem Speaker after Mumtaz Ahmed Khan in 2018.
Meanwhile, BJP MLA T. Raja Singh said that he will never take oath before Owaisi. He said like in 2018, he would not take oath on the first day and would wait for appointment of a full-time Speaker. Raja Singh also claimed that no BJP MLA will take oath before Owaisi.
He alleged that by appointing Owaisi as the protem Speaker, the Congress government was following into the footsteps of BRS to appease minorities. The BJP has eight members in the 119-member Assembly.
The Congress wrested power from the BRS in the November 30 elections, bagging 64 seats. It has already announced that Gaddam Prasad Kumar will be the Speaker.
A Dalit leader, Kumar was elected from Vikarabad (SC) seat.