Kurien to be elected RS Dy Chairman tomorrow

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will move the first of the total seven motions to elect Kurien for the post. Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley will second the motion.

Kurien, who succeeds K Rahman Khan, whose term expired recently, is the unanimous choice for the job with the Prime Minister and Jaitley filing nominations in his favour.

His election will be the first occasion when the ruling alliance and the Opposition will jointly decide on a candidate after contesting the Presidential and Vice Presidential elections.

The Left and other parties were reportedly not interested in fighting the election for the post of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman as the numbers did not add up and putting up a contest for the sake of doing so was not favoured by many. The ruling Congress has a comfortable majority with SP and BSP support.

JD-U leader Shivanand Tewari will move the second motion, which will be seconded by Naresh Agrawal of Samajwadi Party.

Interestingly, among the proposers and seconders of Kurien's candidature are Trinamool Congress leaders Mukul Roy and Derek 'O Brien, whose party had kept the Congress on tenterhooks till the last moment during the Presidential poll.

DMK's Kanimozhi will also move a motion to be seconded by Ram Kripal Yadav of Lalu Prasad's RJD.

Key UPA ally NCP is, however, not moving any motion. The name of Tariq Anwar from NCP was also doing the rounds some time back when Sharad Pawar's party had expressed reservations over the issue of cohesion and coordination in the ruling alliance.

Others, who will move the motions include Motilal Vora, Karan Singh, Javed Akhtar (proposers), Devender Goud T, Praveen Rashtrapal and Anu Aga (seconders).