NEW DELHI: Even while nominations for elections of Lok Sabha Speaker would conclude on Tuesday, three recent occupants in past two decades have seemingly seen an unusual fate of not returning to lower House of Parliament after elections.
The 17th Lok Sabha Speaker is set to be elected on Wednesday.
The Left stalwart Somnath Chatterjee held the position in the first term of the UPA government.
His popularity in Parliament saw him being unanimously elected as Speaker of the 14th Lok Sabha.
However, his relations with the top echelons of CPI (M) soon soured, leading in his expulsion from the party.
He was denied re-nomination by the party in the next Lok Sabha elections from his traditional Bolpur Parliamentary constituency.
Chatterjee was succeeded by Congress MP Meira Kumar as Speaker of the 15th Lok Sabha.
However, she lost next Lok Sabha elections from her pocket borough in Sasaram Parliamentary constituency in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections at the hands of the BJP nominee Chedi Paswan.
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections too gave the same result, with Kumar losing to Paswan.
The BJP veteran Sumitra Mahajan was elected to the post of Lok Sabha Speaker in 2014. She presided over the 16th Lok Sabha. Along with Kumar, Mahajan ensured that a woman stayed as the Lok Sabha Speaker of a decade.
However, she had to sit out of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections after the BJP forced 75 years age ceiling for contesting Lok Sabha elections.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP GMC Balyogi was Speaker for 12th Lok Sabha, which could function only for about one year since mid-term polls were held in 1999. Balyogi was again elected Speaker of the 13 Lok Sabha, but he died in a helicopter crash in 2002.
Balyogi was succeeded by Manohar Joshi of Shiv Sena as Lok Sabha Speaker for the remaining tenure of the 13th Lok Sabha, but he lost the next elections.
Incidentally, the position of the Lok Sabha Speaker has largely gone to political veterans, with ruling parties at times making a fine balance on regional and caste lines.
The BJP is also likely to pick the nominee for the election of the 17th Lok Sabha Speaker on grounds of sending out a political message by addressing caste and community considerations.