Kageri unanimously elected Karnataka assembly speaker

Senior BJP leader and sixtime MLA Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri was on Wednesday unanimouslyelected the 22nd Speaker of the Karnataka LegislativeAssembly.

The election of the Speaker was necessitated after K R Ramesh Kumar resigned from the post on Monday, soon after Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa proved majority on the floor of the assembly, three days after he was sworn in.

Kageri, MLA from Sirsi, who had filed his nominationon Tuesday, was elected unopposed, as Congress and JD(S) did not field a candidate against him.

Kageri, a staunch RSS man, who began his careerwith the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, was a surprise pick as former Speaker K G Bopaiah's name was doing the rounds.

As the House met for the day, Deputy Speaker Krishna Reddy initiated the election process and Yediyurappa proposed Kageri's name, which was seconded by Basvaraj Bommai (BJP).

Following this, the proposal to elect Kageri was adopted by a voice vote.

Then Yediyurappa and Congress Legislature party leader Siddaramaiah escorted Kageri to the Speaker's chair.

On assuming office as the Speaker, Kageri thanked the members of the House for unanimously electing him.

Defending his Sangh Parivar links,over which some members passed some comments while congratulating him on becoming theSpeaker, Kageri said he was a swayamsevak and was in RSS.

"I'm what I'm today is because what I have learned from the sangh..." he said.

Stating that everyone has a right to believe in their ideology, Kageri said "Some people have spoken aboutHindutva ideology of the organization I come from.

The SupremeCourt itself had said Hindutva is a way of life.... it is a symbol of our nationality."
Earlier during his intervention, while congratulating Kageri and expressing trust in him to keep up the democratic values, Congress leader Siddaramaiah, pointing at Kharge's association with RSS and ABVP said, "you will not have that infection now, from here on you are non-partisan."