A day after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal proved his majority in the Delhi assembly, AAP's M.S. Dhir was Friday elected speaker of the house.
A chief warden in the civil defence, Dhir defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party's Jagdish Mukhi 37-32 in the 70-member legislature - the same margin by which the Aam Aadmi Party government won the trust vote Thursday.
Dhir, formerly of the State Trading Corp, got the backing of his own party (28 members), Congress (seven), the sole Janata Dal-United member as well as an independent.
The eighth Congress legislator, Mateen Ahmed, was in the chair and didn't vote.
Mukhi got the backing of the BJP's 31 legislators and the Akali Dal which has one member.
A legislator from Jangpura, Dhir defeated Tarvinder Singh Marwah of the Congress by 1,744 votes in the Delhi election.
A minority AAP government took office Dec 28 after elections threw up a fractured mandate. The AAP formed a government after the BJP refused to, citing its lack of majority support.
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