Advani, Joshi in front row of House, for now

The Lok Sabha on Thursday began the long process of swearing-in of all its members, with Kamal Nath in the chair as pro tem speaker.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced that Sumitra Mahajan, member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh will be its candidate for the post of Speaker. She is likely to be elected unopposed.

From the press gallery, it was disorienting to watch 10-year old seating arrangements being reversed.

Narendra Modi, who took oath first, will now occupy the seat where Manmohan Singh once used to sit. Till Wednesday, L K Advani was sitting next to Modi.

On Thursday, Advani occupied one of the front row seats along with senior Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh and Ram Vilas Paswan, meant for ministers by convention, although he is not a minister.

Advani was seen gesturing to Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu that he be allowed to sit in the second row but was requested to take the front row seat. Murli Manohar Joshi, Ram Vilas Paswan (Lok Janshakti Party  chief), M Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh were in the front row, an arrangement that is not sustainable because Joshi is not a minister and front row seats are meant for ministers.

Nitin Gadkari, a former BJP chief, was sitting in the second row.Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati and Harsh Vardhan took their oath in Sanskrit. Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda took oath in Kannada.

Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge occupied the seat next to Sonia Gandhi in the Opposition benches with Amrinder Singh, who defeated Arun Jaitley from Amritsar, also occupying the front rows in the opposition benches. Kamal Nath is expected to take a seat in the front row as well.

Rahul Gandhi is seated at the back of the opposition benches and was having a lengthy chat with Supriya Sule of Nationalist Congress Party.

Jyotiraditya Scindia will be the chief whip of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. Captain Amarinder Singh will be party's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha.

Those occupying front rows on the Opposition side included Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sudip Bandyopadhyay (TMC), Arjun Charan Sethi (BJD) and M Thambidurai (AIADMK).