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Indian speaker threatens to quit

NEW DELHI: The speaker of India’s parliament threatened Thursday to resign, saying some members’ accusations that he was behaving like a “dictator” had caused him agony.

“If members are not happy with the present incumbent, I shall have no regrets in leaving it. I was happier facing the chair than occupying it,” Somnath Chatterjee told a stunned lower house.

His threat to resign came after opposition Bharatiya Janata Party members accused him Wednesday of “behaving like a dictator.”

The accusations came during a day of tumult when opposition lawmakers forced the house to adjourn to protest the government’s handling of a train accident which killed 38 people.

Chatterjee, a senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that rules West Bengal state, took over as speaker at the behest of India’s ruling Congress Party which came to power in May.

He said “the chair does not have any prestige any longer and has become totally irrelevant and it has become a matter of agony for me to occupy this chair, which I never expected to do, far less solicited.”

After making his resignation offer, he did not raise the subject again and with a poker face carried on with the day’s proceedings.

There was no immediate reaction to his offer to resign.

He has often tried in vain to subdue unruly lawmakers.

The speaker’s job in India is widely seen as one of the toughest in any parliamentary democracy. Nearly a quarter of India’s lawmakers face criminal charges and scenes of tumult are a daily occurrence.

MPs are quick to jump to their feet, shout down rivals and often storm the speaker’s chair to stage protests. afp

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