The battle of speaker is ON, and to counter the opposition Samajwadi Party's move to file petitions before Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana, seeking the disqualification of 8 MLAs who voted against the party whip in the Rajya Sabha polls, the ruling BJP could appoint one of the rebel MLAs as the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.

The move to appoint a rebel Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA as the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly could be made during the upcoming monsoon session, sources here said on Sunday.

A similar experiment was successful in the Yogi Adityanath 1.0 government when rebel SP MLA Nitin Agarwal was made the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly on October 18, 2021. Currently, Nitin Agarwal, a BJP MLA from Hardoi, is a Minister in the Yogi 2.0 government.

However, the SP has reportedly decided to file disqualification petitions against the 8 MLAs who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls, leading to the defeat of its official party candidate. The SP is also collecting evidence against these rebel MLAs, including instances of campaigning for BJP candidates in the Lok Sabha polls, to strengthen its case.

The 8 SP MLAs who cross-voted in the RS polls include Manoj Kumar Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Rakesh Pandey, Abhay Singh, Rakesh Pratap Singh, Pooja Pal, and Ashutosh Maurya, while Gayatri Prasad Prajapati’s wife, Maharaji Devi, did not participate in the polling.

During the Lok Sabha polls, Manoj Kumar Pandey joined the BJP in the presence of Amit Shah in Rae Bareli, while Maharaji Devi openly campaigned for Smriti Irani in Amethi.

Sources said that if the BJP high command approves the experiment, then Manoj Kumar Pandey will be the ultimate choice for the Deputy Speaker.