FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER OF GUJARAT LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER OF GUJARAT LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

Context:

On 27th Sep 2021, Senior BJP MLA Nimaben Acharya became the first woman, Speaker of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly.

Speaker of Legislative Assembly:

• Article 178 of the Indian Constitution gives a Speaker to preside over the sessions of the Legislative Assembly of an Indian State as Article 93 provides for a similar speaker in the Lok Sabha.
• A Speaker vacates his office if he ceases to be a member of the Assembly.
• He may also resign his office at any time.
• A speaker may be removed from office by a resolution of the Assembly passed by a majority of all the then members of the Assembly after 14 days’ notice of the intention to move such a resolution.
• Speaker does not vacate his office on the dissolution of the Assembly.
• He continues to be the Speaker until immediately before the first sitting of the Assembly after the dissolution.
• While the office of the Speaker is vacant, the Deputy Speaker performs his duties.
• The duties and powers of the Speaker are, broadly speaking the same as those of the Speaker of the House of the People (Lok Sabha).

Legislative assembly (also known as Vidhan Sabha):

• It is the lower house of the bicameral states and the sole house of the unicameral states.
• It is the popularly elected chamber and is the real Centre of power in a State.
• The maximum strength of an assembly should not be over 500 or its minimum strength fall below 60. But some of the States have been permitted to have smaller Legislative Assemblies, e.g. Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, etc.
• The territorial constituencies demarcation should be done as far as possible, such that the ratio between the population of each constituency and the number of seats allotted to it is the same all over the State.