President Droupadi Murmu Thursday appointed BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab as pro-tem Speaker of the Lok Sabha under Article 95(1) of the Constitution.
The 18th Lok Sabha, with its newly elected members, will hold its first session from June 24 to July 3, during which the new Speaker of the House will be elected. Until then, the pro-tem Speaker is chosen to administer some important duties. ‘Pro-tem’ essentially means ‘for the time being’ or ‘temporarily’.
Mahtab, who won the Cuttack since 1998 on a BJD ticket six times, resigned from the regional party expressing displeasure over its functioning in recent years and joined the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls. Mahtab, the son of Odisha’s first chief minister Harekrushna Mahtab, won Cuttack again in 2024, this time as a BJP candidate, defeating BJD’s Santrupt Misra.
The Constitution does not mention the post of pro-tem Speaker. However, the official ‘Handbook on the Working of Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs’ speaks about the ‘Appointment and Swearing in of Speaker pro tem’.
The handbook states when the Speaker post falls vacant before a new Lok Sabha, “the duties of the Speaker are to be performed by a Member of the House appointed for this purpose by the President as Speaker pro tem”.
Administering oaths to the new MPs is the pro-tem Speaker’s primary duty. Under Article 99 of the Constitution, “Every Member of the House shall, before taking his seat, make and subscribe before the President or some person appointed in that behalf by him, an oath or affirmation according to the form set out for the purpose in the Third Schedule of the Constitution.”
